


the house of forgotten memories

by lostariels



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Kidnapping, Memory Loss, Missing Persons, Parenthood, Separations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:08:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28625451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostariels/pseuds/lostariels
Summary: Two years after billionaire Lena Luthor vanished from her office at L-Corp, Tess Mercer appeared in an alleyway in Metropolis with no memory of her past. Barely scraping by as a mechanic in the slums of the city, she finds herself troubled by the things she can do, building bombs from scrap metal and fighting off people with skills she doesn't know where she learnt. Her memory is gone, just out of reach, but Tess can't help but feel like there's something more to her blank past than she knows. Searches for the truth turn up empty, until the fourth anniversary of Lena Luthor's disappearance, when Tess sees her face on the TV and knows that the person she's looking at is herself.On the other side of the country, Kara Danvers has spent the last four years searching for her missing wife while raising her nephew and masquerading as a part-time superhero. When there's finally news of Lena, things don't go to plan when she comes home to a wife she doesn't know she has, and an eight-year-old child that isn't hers. As they try to recover Lena's memory and figure out what happened to her, Kara struggles to let go of the fact that she might never get her wife back.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 106
Kudos: 513





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [triangleshape19](https://archiveofourown.org/users/triangleshape19/gifts).



The weather was bitter in Metropolis in January, frost riming door frames and car doors, ice making the roads slick as old snow turned to brown slush in the gutters. Tess was almost grateful for the warmth of the garage as she worked, sweating beneath her grease-stained overalls as she replaced the engine of an old Honda Civic nearly as old as she was. Or she assumed; that’s what her birth certificate said, at any rate.

The roller door was open a foot, letting in a cold wind that cooled the stifling shop, and nothing disturbed her but the sound of her working and the faint crackling of an old radio stacked on top of old tyres. It was late. Late enough to call it a day, but she had no other plans and no one else, so Tess worked.

The sun had already set hours before, the temperature plummeting, and the slums north of the city took on an undercurrent of danger as the shadows grew deeper. The change always happened almost suddenly, the lingering figures in doorways changing from loiterers into thieves and muggers, car alarms piercing the narrow streets, quickly followed by police and ambulance sirens. It was safer to be at work - for now.

She had a wrench in hand, loosening a bolt, the muscles in her back and shoulders aching from long hours spent hunched over the bonnet, and she was so lost in thought that she didn’t hear the door open from the office.

“Off for the night.”

Out from under the bonnet and facing the intruder, Tess’ pulse jumped as she clenched the wrench in a white-knuckled grip, braced for attack. The adrenaline faded nearly as fast at it had come, leaving her shaking and hollow as she loosened her grip. It was just her boss, Mr Graves. Tall and broad with dark slicked back hair and an oily smile, he left her on edge, but she needed the money so she stayed.

“Easy, Mercer,” he cautioned her, holding his hands up in defence as he gave her a sleazy smile, “you spook at your own shadow.”

Giving him a tight nod, Tess swallowed and muttered a goodnight, her back rigid as she turned back around and listened to him leave. The roller door thundered as it was pushed up, a howling wind flurrying inside, making her shiver. 

As soon as she was alone, Tess stopped. Setting her wrench down on the oil cloth draped over the side of the car, she pressed her blackened fingers to her pale forehead and exhaled. Shoulders tense as she braced herself on the car, she squeezed her eyes shut.

She didn’t know what it was that left her so jumpy. She didn’t know _anything._ The first thing she remembered was waking up on the frozen ground of an alleyway two winters back, huddled as she shivered against the cold and a booted foot nudged her awake.

It was the back entrance of a cheap restaurant, the alley crawling with rats after the mounding piles of rubbish tossed outside. A dishwasher shouted at her as she forced her iced together lashes open, trash striking the ground next to her and splitting open with a rotten sound as she was covered with lumpy gravy and wilted lettuce.

Staggering to her feet, her bones stiff and her lips blur, Tess hadn’t known her own name as she stared at the pock-faced man with wide eyes. He tossed a cigarette butt into the alley and exhaled a stream of grey smoke, a grimy apron tied around his waist, stared at her in warning and then stepped inside, slamming the back door shut. What little warmth seeped from the steaming kitchens evaporated and Tess buried her hands in her pockets.

In one, she found two bound wads of cash, that at a later count totalled two thousand dollars, and in the other a driver’s license and a birth certificate. Holding the license in her trembling, reddened fingers, she’d stared at the photo of the young woman with dark hair and pale skin and drank in the details. That was where she learnt her own name.

Since then, no one had tracked her down, no one had come for her, and try as she might, Tess just couldn’t _remember_. It was there, faintly, buried deep in her mind, she was sure of it, but it was so intangible that she could never grasp onto anything solid. And it left her feeling cold and wary, jumping at shadows and coiled to spring, as if she was always on guard.

Feeling off-kilter, she slowly packed up for the night, wiping down all of her tools and stowing them away. Laying out the parts in neat orderly rows for tomorrow morning. Lastly, she checked the doors were locked and hit the lights, pulling on her heavy overcoat, showing signs of wear now, before heaving her satchel onto a shoulder and ducking out through under the roller door.

The cold was like a stinging slap, fresh snow eddying around her as her breath plumed between her lips, and Tess shuddered. Her fingers were clumsy on the burning cold padlock as she locked up, and she pulled a thinning scarf from her bag, winding it around her neck to cover her nose and cheeks, her breath warming the fabric with each exhale as she hunched her shoulders and walked home.

Despite her license, she couldn’t afford a car, not in Metropolis, where the parking alone would’ve cost more than a piece of junk would to run, and not in the slums where stolen cars showed up as burnt out husks and anything worth stealing would be gone within the hour. So she walked.

Hands buried in her pockets, Tess walked home, her heavy steel-capped boots slow on the slick sidewalk, her body brimming with tense alertness as she stared out at the darkness. The street lamps didn’t work in this part of town, making it easy to rob people blind, to kill, to break in. Not a lot worked around these parts, and the only light came from dingy cigar shops and bodegas, grimy bars and laundrettes. 

The streets weren’t empty and Tess was cautious as she walked, stepping past trash and people sprawled out at the base of buildings with busted and boarded up window frames. Sirens howled in the distance and car’s suspensions jolted as the hit potholes in the pitted roads. All Tess could think was that it was a mercy that it was winter, so the added stench of rotting food was absent. 

Still, the rats got into it and alley cats slunk about in the dark. People stumbled out of bars to spray vomit over the outside walls and the whimpering pleas of someone in trouble with the wrong crowd drifted out of alleyways, while loitering groups of young men posturing on the street corners as they drunk weak beer jeered at women looking for callers.

It wasn’t a nice area by any means, but it was all Tess could afford. After dragging herself to a motel, where the walls were paper thin, letting in the sounds of shouting and loud TV and snoring, she scoured newspapers for an apartment, at a loss of what else to do. The job came soon after, almost by chance as she helped fix a man’s engine, the knowledge seeming to bubble up through the gaps in her memory with ease. He’d offered her a job at the garage, the pay almost insulting, but she was a woman with no qualifications as far as she was aware, and she needed what she could get.

She’d been there ever since, feeling almost at home amidst the rougher crowd of Metropolis’ poor neighbourhoods, everyone out for themselves. It made her feel less paranoid, the _need_ to be on alert all the time, just like everyone else. It made the gun she’d bought with her first paycheck worth it, the weight in her satchel a comforting reminder that she could protect herself.

Tess didn’t know if she could even use it, yet the weight had been familiar the first time she’d held it, a memory just out of reach. She’d loaded the bullets and slipped the magazine in as if she’d done it a thousand times, although that was the first she could remember. The man in the dusty, old store hadn’t asked questions, taking her cash and turning his back on her. She could’ve bought it to kill someone and no one around these parts would’ve cared.

Stopping at a bodega on the corner of her block, Tess wandered the crowded aisles, picking up a six pack of beers and a Cuban sandwich before paying with crumpled bills. The owner behind the counter was familiar, his Hawaiian shirt open to a white vest and his thick moustache, the way he always gave her a kind nod, and she knew it was kind because his brown eyes always seemed a little concerned for her and he stuffed her sandwich a little fuller.

With her sandwich and beers nestled in her bag, enough to stave off hunger for the time being, she crunched glass beneath her boots as she stepped outside and made for home. The apartment wasn’t much; the fourth floor of a five-storey complex, the building noisy and falling into disrepair, her neighbours loud and the walls badly insulated.

There was no elevator, of course, and the stairs squeaked as she made her way up, sifting through her junk mail as weariness bowed her shoulders. She reached her floor and stepped off to find a figure crouching before her door, rattling the handle.

Tess didn’t even think. Instinct took over and in one smooth motion, she’d grabbed the person and flipped them over, slamming them onto the floor. Their dark hood fell down to reveal a face, round with childishness, and now pale with fear and shock, and Tess let out a tired sigh, slowly uncurling her fingers from the front of the kid’s hoodie.

“Get out of here,” she roughly said, straightening up as she curled her fingers into a fist to hide the tremor.

Her stomach felt tied into knots, a pucker between her eyebrows as a feeling of unease crept over her. Feet scrabbling at the stained linoleum, the kid lurched to the stairs, taking them two at a time as he fled his attempted burglary. Things like that had happened a few times, attempted muggings bringing out some hidden fighting ability, leaving one - or sometimes even two - attackers bleeding and nursing their wounds as she fled unscathed. She didn’t know _how_ she did it, or couldn’t even replicate it under normal circumstances, but as soon as that switch flipped in her mind, the feeling of a threat or the need to fix something, her body took over of its own free will.

Pushing the kid to the back of her mind, Tess unlocked the front door and jerked the stiff piece of wood to let herself in. Switching the wan lights on, she locked the door and drew the chain across, a flimsy barrier to anyone who _truly_ wanted to get to her.

The apartment was small, a mere shoebox of a place, all one room and a tiny bathroom. Her bed was a mattress laid out on the floor with blankets neatly folded on top, the kitchen barely qualifying as such with the mini fridge and oven and a single counter. The only other furnishings were a small table and a single folding chair, a broken heater that had made the winter nights unbearable these last few days, and a duffel bag with all the clothes she owns.

Kicking off her boots and setting them down beside the door, Tess shed her snow-dusted coat and hung it over the back of her solitary chair, before fetching clean clothes from the duffel bag. Stepping into the cubicle of a bathroom, she slipped off the dirty overalls and turned on the hot water, shivering in the frigid air of the bathroom and the pipes groaned with the effort of heating the water. 

Once it had gotten has hot as it would, just past warm and not nearly enough to steal the frozen stiffness from her limbs, Tess stepped in the shower and scrubbed the grease and sweat from the garage away with a bar of soap, the water hard as it stung her back.

Stepping out all too soon, Tess stared at her wan reflection in the mirror, smudges beneath her eyes and a gaunt look to her cheeks. Somehow, they never went away, hunger always on the edge of her thoughts and her nights filled with unintelligible nightmares that left her fitful and restless.

Sighing, she raked a hand through the wet, choppy locks, unsticking them from her cheeks as she ruffled her hair. She cut it herself every few months, before this very mirror with a pair of kitchen shears, the job always uneven. 

Staring at herself for a moment longer, Tess pressed a towel to her face, digging her fingers into her closed eyelids as water ran down her body and goosebumps rippled to the surface. Pulling on a pair of sweatpants, she paused with her shirt and pressed a finger to the scar just below her left collarbone, frowning at the reflection.

She had no recollection of how she got it. It had been there the first time she’d showered after awakening in the alley, raised and shiny, barely an inch long. Running her finger lightly across it, she shuddered, troubled by the scar and the hard feeling beneath it. It always made Tess feel like there was something within her, something itching to be taken out, and more than once she was tempted to get a knife and take it out herself, only the logical side of her mind tempering those impulses that came from nowhere.

Shaking her head at her musings, Tess donned a T-shirt and a sweater, pulling on her thick socks to ward off the chill emanating from the tiled floor, and stepped back into her dismal apartment. One corner of the ceiling showed signs of spreading mildew that only seemed to be worsening and she sighed as she fished her dinner and beers from her bag and set them down at the table.

Opening a can, she took a sip and grimaced at the taste, but drank it anyway, the sour taste of beer better than nothing by the end of the night, as it blurred the edges of her mind and took away the knife-sharp paranoia that left her jumping at every sound in the old building. 

She was on her second can and just starting on her dinner when there was a ruckus outside the window, and Tess lurched down to drag the small pistol from her satchel, before quietly padding to the window. It was coming from the fire escape, where more than one break-in had occurred in her apartment. She used to have a small TV and a refurbished, clunky laptop, until both were stolen on two separate occasions and she couldn’t be bothered to replace them. Only the glass in the window had been replaced both times, a luxury to her with the cold weather that _still_ managed to see inside around the edges.

It was stuck from the solid ice as she tried to tug it open, the hoar frost obscuring her vision as it turned the windowpane opaque, but she eventually wrenched it open and pointed her gun straight ahead as she ducked outside. There was no intruder, but as her hand shot out, she came up holding a hissing, wriggling mass of black fur.

_“You,”_ Tess sighed, dragging the stray inside and dumping him on the floor. 

Slamming the window shut, she locked it from the inside and put the safety back on the pistol, before placing it on the small table. The cat was a regular sighting in and around the building, sometimes curled up in the laundry room in the basement, sometimes batting at a mouse in the stairwell, or more often than not, causing a fuss on one of the fire escapes as he knocked over old crockery or fought other strays.

“It’s too cold out for you tonight,” Tess muttered to the cat as he jumped up on the table.

Stepping around her beer cans, he scratched at her Cuban sandwich and, pity tugging at her heartstrings, Tess fished out a few slices of ham and pork for the cat to chew on while she ate. He was friendly, and although he was a nuisance, and frequently came around with fleas and new scars, Tess was fond of him. He occasionally stayed the night on especially bitter winter nights, when he spent the night yowling outside while Tess’ neighbours swore out their windows, until she opened her window and coaxed him inside.

Finishing her sandwich, Tess fetched a few of the tools in her satchel and opened another beer before setting the broken heater down on the table before her. With the city a comforting hum of noise outside, familiar despite the unsavouriness of the neighbourhood, the danger keeping her watchful, wary.

The night slowly passed as she tinkered with the heater, taking it apart and cleaning the pieces, before methodically putting it back together. She did it in a trance-like state, her mind distracted by the thoughts of who she might be. Searches of her name at the threadbare library near the skeletal park two blocks away had amounted to nothing, calls to the local police station with her name and her information had turned up nothing but squeaky clean records. It was a dead end and Tess was stuck.

The thought troubled her more than it should’ve, that nagging feeling that she was _someone_ at the back of her mind like an itch she just couldn’t scratch. Setting down the screwdriver, Tess leant back in her chair as she cat leapt into her lap and curled up, claws digging into her thighs. Scratching him idly behind the ears, Tess took a sip of beer and looked at the heater, before starting in her seat.

The stray hissed and skittered away, moving to the far corner of the room, where the linoleum was peeling away from the wall, fur standing on end, much in the way that the hair on the back of Tess’ neck stood up. Her skin prickled with fear and a cold sweat doused her body as she swallowed dryly, leaning forward to touch the heater with a shaking hand.

Only, it wasn’t a heater. Not anymore. Her hands, led by their own devices had deconstructed it, rebuilt it, and turned it into something else entirely. She didn’t know _how_ she knew what a bomb looked like, how she knew that the wiring had been altered and the heating elements warped to spark at the flick of a switch. 

The breath caught in Tess’ throat and she quickly reached for a pair of pliers, parting the neatly bundled wires until she found the correct one to snip. Her hand shook as she cut it, disabling the machine, and she felt weak with fear, some part of her mind dark and suspicious. _Who was she?_

A nudge against her leg startled her before she relaxed, the cat purring as he rubbed his head against her calf, and Tess let out a pent up breath. It offered no release, and in the wan light of the bare lightbulb overhead, she spent the rest of the night drinking her beers and staring at the disabled bomb, wondering just how dangerous she was.

Midnight crawled around and Tess turned the oven on, leaving the door open to flood the tiny apartment with what little heat it could offer, before she curled up on her mattress and burrowed into the blankets. The cat joined her, clawing at the down quilts before he settled down, and just like every other night before, she fell into an uneasy sleep, frequently interrupted by nightmares.

She had no need for an alarm clock, waking well before dawn, shooing the cat back out onto the fire escape after he’d stolen the rest of her leftover sandwich.

The shower was cold, the heating system clunky from the freezing temperatures outside, and Tess was quick, before she bundled on her layers and changed into her dirty overalls. The only thing she had left in the fridge was three-day-old pizza but she wolfed it down, the texture like cardboard, before heating water in a pot and brewing bitter coffee from a sachet. At least it was warm.

It was too early for work, but the apartment offered her nothing. At least the garage was warm, at least there was a bulky square TV and a radio, an old coffee percolator that was barely better than the stuff at home, but was limitless.

Donning her coat and scarf, tallying up numbers to decide if she could spare enough for gloves this week, Tess shoved her gun into her satchel and locked the door behind her before making her way down into the street below.

The snow hadn’t let up overnight, leaving the ruinous slums treacherous, pitted streets even more dangerous than usual with the early morning sheen of ice. Hacking coughs and shouts echoed down the near-empty streets, the early risers and late sleepers skulking through the streets together. 

The cold crept beneath the collar of her coat and Tess hunched her shoulders as she walked, passing by the cherry-red ends of lit cigarettes looming from the dark mouths of buildings as low-level gang members kept lookout or canvassed buildings. It didn’t bother Tess; she had nothing left to steal.

She arrived at the garage before Graves, forcing the roller door up and flipping lights, warmth seeping into her fingertips as she clutched a fresh cup of thick coffee and stood before the shuddering mouth of the heating vent. The TV was switched to the morning news, the sound cutting through the quiet noise Tess made installing the main bearing in the cylinder block, and she straightened up, wiping at her brow with a greasy sleeve as the news anchor's voice rang out clearly.

_“Today marks the fourth anniversary since billionaire philanthropist and tech CEO, Lena Luthor, vanished mysteriously from her office at L-Corp headquarters in National City.”_

Glancing at the screen with little interest, Tess did a double-take at the photo on the flickering TV screen and felt her stomach lurch. Dropping her torque wrench to the floor, the tool clanging against the concrete, she gravitated towards the TV with a slack look of shock on her face, feeling green with nausea.

It was _her._ But it wasn’t. That face was hers in another life, young and arrogant, a wry twist to those red lips, a gleam in those green eyes. That dark hair was sleek and long, instead of choppy and short, those cheeks were still sharp and almost haughty, but not hollowed out with hunger and desperation. Feeling sick, Tess reached out to numbly touch the screen, trying to find that little scar beneath her eyebrow, but the quality was too shoddy.

_“The twenty-two year old was last seen-“_

Snapping the switch to off, Tess raked a hand through her hair, drawing in a shallow breath as she ran over what she’d heard. _Four years._ That had been four years ago, yet she could only remember from two years ago. If it was her, where did the other two years go? What happened to her? Where were her memories?

Caught off balance, Tess quickly packed up her things and abandoned the garage, locking the roller door behind her and quickening her pace as she moved through the dawn, the roads filling with traffic and commuters and a few brave cyclists.

Mind whirling as her vision seemed to shrink, her world reduced to what she’d seen on that TV, Tess moved through the familiar back alleys and side streets, stepping over bodies that could’ve been corpses for all she knew, skirting past skirmishes and panhandlers lingering out the front of stores that were setting up for the day.

She set a brisk pace the whole way to the library, shaking when she stepped into the airy building. It was five scant rows of books covering a variety of topics, and two computers at the back, where there had been five the first time she’d visited. Both were currently occupied and Tess paced impatiently, biting at her nails as a librarian eyed her with wariness.

As soon as the computer was free, Tess descended on it in a heartbeat, brushing past the old man that had relinquished his seat. Muttering an apology, she was already logging in with the details she’d used to sign up and had keyed in the name Lena Luthor and clicked to images.

Scrolling through them, she found herself unable to breathe. Her chest constricted with panic, with shock, and was that a small spark of _hope?_ It was her, Tess was sure of it. She didn’t know what had happened, but that face looking out at her from the cover of Forbes and Time magazine, from TED talk stills and press conferences was _her._ She found a picture that was a high enough resolution to show the fine details of the young woman photographed and felt her stomach drop. There, beneath her eyebrow, was a small scar.

Twenty minutes later, Tess Mercer barged into a local police precinct, dishevelled and grey in the face, holding a crumpled printed photograph of a missing woman. Walking up to the desk, she set it down before the officer manning it and opened and closed her mouth, unable to even find the words to explain herself.

“This is me,” she finally rasped, “I think this is me.”

* * *

On the opposite coast of the country, holed up in a yellow-lit room on the top floor of the DEO, Kara pored over a large, unfolded map of the world, overlaid with dozens of other maps, showing the states and counties of most of the world’s countries. The vast majority of them were coloured in, yet there was a tense desperation to the set of Kara’s shoulders as she moved them about, muttering to herself.

She’d been in there for three hours, taking a reprieve from flying as sun lamps re-energised her. Still, they did nothing for the deep, haunted circles beneath her eyes, or for the restless agitation in Kara’s movements.

Turning, she strode over to a large whiteboard and cork board situated beside each other, one covered in pen scribbles in her hand, while the other was plastered with articles in a dozen languages, string linking stories or rumours and blurry photographs pinned up. Tearing an article off the wall, Kara scrunched it up in her hand in frustration, her eyes burning as she clenched her teeth and tossed the ball to the corner of the room, where it bounced off the overflowing trash can that Kara refused to let anyone empty.

An urgent knock sounded on the door, most likely for some attack or some rescue that her higher-ups deemed important, but it all paled in comparison to Kara’s need to find Lena. Ignoring it, her eyes roamed over the other pieces of paper, trying to decide which one to chase up next, when the door was wrenched open and Alex stuck her head inside.

“Not now, Alex, I-“

“We’ve found something.”


	2. Chapter 2

“They’re not sure, they’re still questioning her, but someone came forward claiming to be her.”

Kara froze, turning slowly as she looked at Alex with a haunted look of desperation in her eyes. “Where?”

“A Metropolis Police Precinct on Thirty-First. It might be another false claim so-”

Before Alex could give her a word of warning, Kara was gone, breezing past her in her suit, her heart in her throat as her stomach clenched with sickening despair. 

It had been  _ four years _ of searching, of dashed hopes and bitter arguments with her friends who tried to gently break the sore truth that perhaps Lena was truly  _ gone. _ But Kara hadn’t given up hope; you didn’t  _ do _ that to your wife. You didn’t give up ever, and if it was another case of mistaken identity, or a sick prank, she would shoulder it as she had the other times and continue to scour the entire planet with a fine-tooth comb until she found her.  _ Her _ Lena.

Pushing herself to the limits of her powers, already so rundown from hours and days and weeks without a proper rest, long stretches spent beneath yellow sun lamps to try and infuse her with as much radiation as possible to tide her over without burning herself out completely, Kara streaked towards Metropolis. She could feel herself flagging halfway there, so close to a burnout that a flicker of panic ran through her. Now was  _ not  _ the time, and that thought alone propelled her through the air.

The current buffeted her and her whole body felt restless and tense with the need to just  _ stop _ , to sleep, to rest for a while. Kara wasn’t even sure she had the mental capacity to prepare herself for what came next. The worst option was that it would be another crushing blow of hopelessness, something she’d already numbed herself to in some regards, but would be no less heartbreaking. The best-case scenario was that it  _ was _ Lena, and that terrified her more.

It had been  _ four years.  _ She wouldn’t be the same Lena that Kara had known and loved, she didn’t know what state she would be in, or how she’d even be able to believe that it was  _ her _ . After so long searching, Kara didn’t know what she’d do if she saw her again.

It was impossible to not think about it though, her chest constricting with that old, familiar feeling of fear, seized by the urge for it to be true. There were so many things that Kara regretted that she’d held on to the possibility of finding Lena again just so she could let go of the guilt that ate away at her over everything she’d wished she’d done differently. She shouldn’t have snapped at her that one time and she should’ve told her she loved her more often. Stupid, little things that had haunted her for four years.

The flight was mercifully quick, although not quick enough for Kara’s liking, the urgency inside her not enough to combat the limits of her personal constraints, and Metropolis was a web of lights as she dipped towards it.

She knew the city fairly well and pitched towards the slums, bypassing the soaring skyscrapers of the central business district for the crowded rows of short apartment buildings amidst small businesses and crime dens. Landing in an empty alleyway only a block away from the precinct, Kara shoved her glasses back on, her suit melting away as she frantically rushed out onto the street.

It was bitterly cold, the streets slick with ice and the brown scum of old snow in the gutters, and she drew more than one curious look in her thin shirt. Breath gusting before her in white clouds as her skin prickled from the sensation of being watched by hidden eyes in the dark recesses of alleyways and shadowed doorways, Kara paid them no heed. She might look like an easy mark to be mugged or attacked, but they would quickly learn, and she was in no state to be merciful.

Her mind had one focus, the rest of the world narrowing to it as she felt the edges of her mind fur with darkness, panic settling in as she pounded down the slippery, cracked sidewalk as fast as she could without being  _ too  _ conspicuous. It would already arouse suspicion that she was showing up at the precinct without being notified through the proper channels.

Still, she burst into the precinct with a dishevelled air of distress, anguish on her face as her shoes squeaked on the yellowed linoleum, a plea in her blue eyes as she braced herself on the edge of the wooden counter and stared at the uniformed office behind the glass partition. 

Her throat closed up and her eyes were swimming with tears, a tremor in her voice as she cleared it and spoke, breathless and haltingly, the tone pitching as panic and worry and fear and the small kernel of hope that refused to be smothered all roiled inside her.

“I’m here to see Lena Luthor. I’m her wife. They- they told me that you- you have her here, that you’ve found her.”

“Her wife?”

“Kara Danvers.”

“Right. Well, ma’am, they’re still asking her a few questions to verify. If you could just take a seat. Maybe fill out some paperwork for us to help speed things along.”

Mouth dry, unable to bring herself to speak as she pulled at the cuffs of her shirt, her bottom lip wobbling even as she pressed her lips together, Kara nodded.

Directed to a folding chair in a line of identical ones, she was given a clipboard and a paper cup of gritty coffee. Her hands were already trembling, but the wave of exhaustion that washed over Kara, as tense and agitated as she was, made her drain the coffee, bitter and stale, if only for something to do.

She was quick to fill out the paperwork, writing down the address of their house, her cell phone number and the home number, her email and date of birth and details about Lena. All the while, she listened, tuning into conversations that were confidential, to break room gossip and lamenting officers who were stuck on night duty on the weekend. 

And Kara was filled with dread as the pen rolled from her numb fingers, clattering to the stained floor as her stomach plummeted with sickening disappointment at the realisation that nowhere in the precinct could she hear Lena’s heartbeat. The heartbeat she would’ve known anywhere, would’ve been able to pinpoint for  _ miles _ around, had listened to night after night since she was a teenager and they’d met in school.

Her eyes burned as pressure built up behind them and Kara stooped down to retrieve the pen, her lips pressed into a bloodless line as she curled her hands into fists and stared resolutely at the large cork board papered with missing persons flyers and training session reminders and local rehab programs and crime stoppers. She couldn’t leave  _ now;  _ they would be expecting her to wait to find out if it was Lena.

Sitting stiffly in her seat, Kara’s ears were faintly ringing as she battled the nauseous feeling, each breath a slow, ragged sound to her own ears as the world receded and she was left all alone in the cold precinct of a dirty city, everyone moving around her as people were dragged inside in handcuffs and muffled shouts fell on her deaf ears, and it wasn’t until the officer touched her on her shoulder that she violently jerked back to the present.

Blinking rapidly, her lips parting as the air rushed from her lungs and her hand reflexively tightened, snapping the cheap plastic ballpoint pen in her hand, smearing it with blue ink, Kara slowly looked up at him.

“Ma’am? I can take that for you. They’re ready for you now.”

And she didn’t know what that meant, but slowly pushed herself to her feet anyway. Kara couldn’t feel her face as she let the officer take the clipboard and broken pen, and she wiped her hand on the thigh of her jeans as she swallowed thickly.

She was buzzed through a heavy door, following the plainclothes detective she’d been passed onto, down a dreary hallway, grey and menial with the copy room and small kitchenette and standard offices branching off. 

They stopped before a closed door and Kara allowed herself to believe for a moment longer, clinging to the dream right up until the moment the door was opened by the detective. And then she squared her shoulders and watched the painted grey wood swing inwards to reveal a dingy room occupied by a rickety table, three metal chairs and a dark-haired woman.

Standing on the threshold of the room, Kara paused, the air rushing from her lungs as a pair of green eyes that were as familiar to her as her own reflection met her gaze. And then she was rushing forward, a broken sob forced between her lips as she extended her arms.

“Oh  _ God,  _ Lena.”

Choking on the words, barely able to speak as her shoulders went slack and Kara felt like her knees might give out, she reached for Lena and then abruptly stopped when Lena jolted up from the chair and stepped back.

Blinking, a wavering smile curled Kara’s lips as her vision blurred with tears, hot tracks on her cheeks, she eyed Lena with befuddled unease. There was something cagey about her, like a trapped wild animal, hackles rising as she looked at Kara with wariness in her green eyes, none of the bright wittiness or gentle tenderness, and not even the sharp, coldness of her anger.

She watched as that wariness turned to confusion, the hesitation on Lena’s face dousing her in a chilling sensation of  _ coldness.  _ Kara didn’t know what it was, but something was wrong and it stopped her in her tracks and smothered the sharp sensation of relief that had made her want to collapse to the ground in overwhelming gratitude only moments before. But it was Lena, there was no doubt about it, and that was enough for her to press on.

“Lena, it’s- it’s me. It’s Kara.”

“Kara.”

Going slack with relief, Kara exhaled softly as her eyelashes fluttered and a faint smile curled her lips. Tears ran down her cheeks and she brushed them away with trembling fingers, struck speechless by the sound of Lena’s voice. It had been  _ so, so  _ long and she could’ve come undone then and there at the serene comfort that consumed her at the sound of her name coming from Lena's lips. Nothing had ever sounded sweeter to her, not even the two words that had tied Lena to her.

“My … wife? They said I have a wife.”

Eyes snapping open, Kara was struck with that sense of dread again, her smile faltering as she sobered slightly. Clearing her throat, she sniffed and dried her cheeks on the cuff of her shirt.

“Yeah, it’s me, Lena.”

“My name … isn’t Lena.”

Mouth opening and closing, Kara’s brown crumpled as she stared at her, unable to make a sound, save for the slightly hysterical laugh that forced its way up her throat.

“It’s Tess.”

_ “Tess?”  _ Kara slowly repeated, glancing to the detective who lingered nearby, confusion flashing across her face, while her eyes were full of accusations.

The detective cleared her throat, stepping forward as she looked at Kara, gesturing slightly towards the door. “Could you please step into the hallway for a moment, Miss Danvers?”

Reluctant to leave Lena’s side, Kara was still for a moment before she forced herself to move, her eyes trained on the face she knew better than her own.

Watching the detective close the door behind them was almost unbearable, the fear that Kara would open the door again to find Lena gone filling her as she tuned in to her heartbeat. It was unfamiliar. It wasn’t  _ Lena’s _ , and it made her realise why she’d never been able to hear it. It was slightly slower than average.

“Miss Danvers,” the detective started, “I know this must be … difficult for you. We ran her biometrics and they  _ were _ a match for Lena Luthor, but … she has no memory. Nothing before two years ago.”

“But … she’s been missing for  _ four  _ years.”

Shrugging, the woman gave her a rueful smile, “it’s as much a mystery to us as it is to you -  _ and  _ her. Her ID says her name is Tess Mercer; she saw the news report on the TV this morning and turned herself in here as a missing person. There’s not much she could tell us that lines up with things, but … it’s her. Can you confirm that for us?”

Tears welling in her eyes, Kara ducked her head in assent, knowing that despite the wrong heartbeat and the blank memory, it  _ was  _ Lena. Without a shadow of a doubt. Her little scar beneath her eyebrow was still there; how could it  _ not _ be her?

“It’s her.”

“Okay, well, I’m not sure how you found out so quickly-“

“I’m in Metropolis for work,” Kara quickly fabricated, “I have a sister in law enforcement in National City. She- they notified me.”

“Right. Normally we don’t reveal the location of the person without their consent, but we were able to pull up the file on Lena Luthor in the nationwide database when we questioned her. She  _ did _ want to speak with you, so it's ... good that you're here.”

Nodding, Kara felt sick as she struggled to take deep breaths, feeling her worst nightmares fabricate before her, because not for a moment had she imagined that Lena wouldn’t know her when they saw each other again.

“What happens now?” she hoarsely asked, wrapping her arms around herself as she looked at the detective with wide, childlike eyes.

“We can’t hold her here for any legal reason, and, as an adult, we can’t release her into your custody, I’m afraid. It is … entirely Miss Mercer’s-“

_ “Luthor,”  _ Kara sharply replied, “her name is  _ Lena Luthor.” _

Dipping her head in acknowledgement, the detective pressed on. “She’s at liberty to make her own decision, whatever that may be. I’m … sorry, Miss Danvers, but … that might not be the option you hope for.”

Letting out a shaky breath, Kara rubbed at her tired eyes and shook her head. “No, no, she can’t just- she can’t  _ not _ come back with me. She’s … my wife. We have a kid together- my nephew. He’s only eight.”

Reaching out to squeeze her arm, the detective gave her a grim, sympathetic smile, “again, I’m sorry. You’re free to stay and talk with her while I process her statement.”

Left alone, standing in the hallway as she tried to steel herself, Kara eventually turned the doorknob and stepped back into the room. Lena was still standing, wearing stained overalls beneath a large coat, far too thin for the winter weather outside, and Kara was floored with mournful devastation as she looked at her,  _ truly _ looked at her.

She’d lost a few pounds, looking sharp and hard, yet even more fragile and lost than she’d been when they’d first met. There was a suspicious look in her green eyes, which never seemed to rest, darting nervously around the room. Her shoulders were tense and she looked like she was ready to flee if provoked in the slightest, but she was so completely Lena that it  _ hurt _ .

The same dark hair, albeit a little shorter than usual, the same pale skin and eyes and nose, her mouth that same wry twist as if she was mocking you. Her hands, webbed with pale green veins, were the same hands she’d held a thousand times, that little scar and the freckle on her throat. How could she be someone that Kara didn’t know, didn’t love?

“I’d like to talk to you if that’s okay,” Kara hesitantly said, slowly moving into the room.

Lena nodded and Kara closed the door behind her, moving over to the table and lowering herself onto one of the metal chairs. She felt light-headed, her shallow breaths on the verge of panic-inducing hysteria as she ran a hand over her face and blinked away the sore feeling in her heavy eyes.

Remaining standing, Lena watched her carefully in silence and Kara curled her hands into fists on the tabletop, waiting. Neither of them spoke and Kara sighed, cracking her knuckles as she fumbled for the words.

“Lena-“

“It’s Tess,” came the mumbled reply, her green eyes dark and perplexed.

Swallowing the flicker of annoyance at the correction, Kara nodded. “Tess, right. I just- I wanted to talk to you about … what happened.”

“I don’t know.”

“I know, they said, but … how can you not remember?” 

The words were pitifully small, full of so much pain and sadness that she saw a spasm of nervous unrest on Lena’s face. 

“What the hell  _ happened  _ to you?” Kara quietly exclaimed, shaking her head as she stared at Lena. “You were just … gone. I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

With a heavy sigh, Lena dragged the chair out and sat down on it, facing Kara with a perturbed look on her face, her lips a faint pout as she frowned. It was so achingly familiar that Kara had to choke back a laugh and resist the urge to reach out and smooth the crease between her eyebrows.

“Look, all I know is that I woke up in an alleyway two years ago. That’s all. I … don’t remember anything from before then. I … don’t remember  _ you.  _ I’m sorry.”

Wincing at the honesty, Kara turned her head to the side and pressed her lips into a flat line. “You don’t have to apologise. I just … don’t know what happens next. They said you’re free to go, to … make your own decision, but …”

“We’re legally married.”

“Yes,” Kara defeatedly murmured, “we’re married, and you don’t even know who I am. I can understand if- if you choose to stay here, but … I remember  _ you _ and I think that if- if you came with me … maybe there’s a way to undo what happened to you. We could recover your memories.”

Lips pressed into a flat line as she contemplated the offer, Lena cast furtive glances at Kara. The silence was oppressive and Kara was restless, the ache to reach for Lena, to wrap her in a tight hug, to apologise and sob into her shoulder was so strong that she couldn’t bear to look at her.

“I was rich, wasn’t I?”

A snort of laughter escaped Kara as a surprised look of amusement crossed her face. “Yeah. Disgustingly.”

“Do I … have any other family? I didn’t have much time to research myself.”

“You … don’t speak to your family, but … you have a sister-in-law, and friends. And we adopted my- my nephew. He’s eight now. His name is Kal.”

Kara hadn’t imagined how painful it would be to speak that lie to Lena. Lena, who had known the truth about Kal, who at eighteen had proposed to Kara in a fit of stubborn determination, ready to drop out of college to raise the alien baby that had landed on Earth so many years later than anticipated. Kara had found him when his pod crashed, hadn’t known what to do, so unwilling to leave him, the last of her house, her people. 

They’d raised him as their nephew, an easier explanation than how she’d ended up saddled with her baby cousin. Lena had been terrified at first, both of them angry at the other at the sudden responsibility of parenthood Kara had assumed, but it had been Lena who had come around, who had agreed to stay. And for four years, she’d raised him as her own, amidst classes and Kara’s decision to help save the world, while taking on the mantle of CEO. And now, she didn’t even know him.

“We … have a child?”

“Yes.”

“Does- does he remember me?”

Kara’s lips twisted into a bitter smile, thinking of his infallible memory, courtesy of his Kryptonian genes. The two of them would never forget a thing.

“He does.”

Nodding, Lena looked down at her hands in her lap, picking at the bitten, oil-stained nails, half-moons of black beneath them as she thought.

“You don’t have to- to come back home, or … be a wife and a mom again, I just- if you were there, we could … work something out. We have friends that can help with this sort of … thing.”

Lena said nothing for the longest while before she looked up and met Kara’s eyes, an almost shy tilt to her head as she looked at her with a guarded expression in her eyes.

“Did you ... look for me the whole time?”

Kara had to press her hand to her mouth to stifle a sob, letting out a gasp of a breath before she sniffed and nodded, her throat closing painfully tight.

“Yeah,” she managed to cry out, her voice hoarse and cracking, “every day. I’ve looked for you every day since you’ve been gone.”

Nodding, Lena chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. “Kara … I think- I think there’s something wrong with me. I- I didn’t know what it is, but it’s not  _ right.  _ Whatever was done to me … I’m afraid-“

Lena’s bottom lip wobbled and it made Kara’s stomach lurch as she got to her feet, rounding the table in an instant as some part of her cringed at the thought of what pain Lena must be in. She’d been alone for so long, so much of her gone and forgotten, and it was unbearable to see her falter in wake of it all.

“Hey,” Kara murmured, her voice thick with tears as the air fled from her lungs and the urge to cry overwhelmed her.

She didn’t try and reach for her, she didn’t try and touch Lena, so patient and mindful of the trauma Lena had so very clearly suffered - whether aware of it or not - but she knelt at her side and spoke in the same gentle, reassuring manner Kara used with all victims and wounded and rescued she dealt with every day.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. I’m here to help you, I promise. I’m not going ... anywhere. I know you don’t remember it, but I made a vow, and I will do … _everything_ I can to help you.”

“And if my memories never return? If you never get your wife back?”

Hearing her fears voiced made Kara feel cold all over, especially when spoken by the voice that  _ belonged _ to her wife, and she took a moment to reply.

“I made a promise.”

Lena was silent for a moment, pulling at the stray threads on the cuff of her shabby coat before she swallowed audibly.

“I’ll come with you.”

* * *

Kara found it hard to comprehend things after that, her world pitched on its head as she found herself too numb to process anything, aside from the fact that she’d physically found Lena. She was stoic and quiet, casting her wife furtive glances as Lena signed some forms on her sparse statement, her heart pounding in her chest with elation and fear and panic.

She could feel her phone buzzing incessantly in her pocket, Alex’s phone calls gone unanswered because Kara just didn’t know what to tell her. Not yet. How could she tell her sister that it  _ was  _ her, but only a shell of her, with no memory, not even the faintest inclination that she  _ knew _ Kara. It was like meeting a doppelgänger, so eerily like Lena but so vastly different as she watched the self-conscious hunch of her shoulders, the murmuring quietness and wary agitation. It was like she was seeing a stranger before her.

But she didn’t know what else to do, had barely even had a moment to  _ think,  _ because if she let Lena go know, she would never have the chance to get her wife back. This  _ Tess _ would go around, inhabiting the body of the woman she’d grown up with, loved with every bit of her, and that was unbearable. Kara had spent years fighting to have her back, and just because it was a different version of her, one that didn’t remember, it didn’t mean she’d give up now.

What was surprising was Lena’s willingness to go with her. For all her uneasiness around Kara, the shadowed look of distrust in her eyes and the way she flinched, startled by any movement that was  _ slightly  _ too fast, Lena had agreed to go to National City, to a house and friends and a life she didn’t know.

It wasn’t until they left the precinct, Kara so shocked that she couldn’t wrap her head around the bizarreness of it as they found themselves on the icy sidewalk. She, in her thin shirt, woefully unprepared, and Lena in her shabby coat, barely faring better in the winter, although she didn’t have superpowers to warm her. Kara wanted to reach for her and wrap her in a tight embrace, chasing away Lena’s shivers and feeling the bird-like brittleness of her thin form, so fragile and small. 

She hailed them a cab instead and Lena hesitated before climbing onto the cracked seat in the back, the smell of warm plastic as the vents pumped out hot air and the old cab hit every pothole and uneven patch of tarmac on the way to the address Lena had given him. Kara didn’t question where they were going, assuming it was Lena’s apartment, and she spent the whole ride silently running her clammy palms over the thighs of her jeans.

Despite knowing the area they were in, the rough reputation and the rundown facade of the buildings, each one crumbling and graffitied with busted and boarded up windows and doors and abandoned cars with clamped wheels and stolen tires, it was still a surprise when they stopped outside a building, as dilapidated as the rest. It was a place she could never imagine Lena living, not in a million years, with her fastidious attention to high-end fashion and indulgence in luxurious things. It was miserable and gloomy and Kara was glad for the fact that she was bulletproof as she climbed out of the cab, handing the driver folded bills, and was met with the emanating air of despair radiated from the building.

Lena let her into the lobby and she followed her upstairs, listening to the shouts and the stomping feet and the loud music, eyeing the naked bulbs that flickered with wan light and the sagging stairs. More than one door had police tape across it as they went up, and the air was filled with the damp smell of cigarettes and mould, the air frigid around them.

The apartment was no better as Lena unlocked the door to reveal the austere box, so pitiful that Kara wanted to cry, taking in the tiny table and the mattress on the floor. She had to force herself to swallow as her eyes took in the meagre belongings.

“This is your place?”

“Yes. I just need to pack a few things.”

A few things were all Kara could see and she nodded, eyeing the mildewed ceiling and watery grey light seeping in through the windows. Hesitating on the threshold, unwilling to even enter, to share in the awfulness of the place Lena had been living in for the past two years, Kara fumbled for her phone in her pocket.

“Okay, I, um, I’ll wait out here. Need to make a phone call.”

Silently nodding, Lena opened the bag that she carried and moved towards the cardboard box of her belongings while Kara shut the apartment door and stepped away. Her fingers shook as she dialled Alex back, a lump in her throat as her chest ached with a hollow tremor.

_ “Why haven’t you answered my calls? I left you three messages. Is it …” _

“It’s her,” Kara breathlessly sobbed, her heart aching just that little bit more as she pinched the bridge of her nose, eyes closed, just feeling  _ exhausted  _ instead of the elation she always imagined she’d feel. “It’s her, Alex-“

_ “Oh, God. Oh my God, Kara, I-“ _

“But-“

_ “But?” _

“She doesn’t remember,” Kara said, her voice cracking. “She has no memory. She doesn’t even know who I am or what- what happened.”

There was a beat of silence on the other end before Alex softly swore.  _ “Um, okay, that’s- that’s fine, right? J’onn can have a look in her mind and … I don’t know, Kelly can talk to her and set her up with one of her psych friends. But … she’s okay, right?” _

“I don’t know, Alex,” Kara whispered, “I mean, I’m at her apartment now. The police said she didn’t  _ have _ to come with me, but she- she wants to and … you should see this place. It’s …  _ awful.  _ She’s been here for two  _ years _ and I just- I don’t know what she’s been through, I don’t know.”

_ “It’ll be okay, Kara. We just- we need to get her home. Get her somewhere familiar. I’ll have her private jet sent to pick you up, seeing as I guess you can’t spill the beans on Supergirl. Not this early anyway.” _

“Thanks.”

Letting out a heavy sigh, Alex swore again.  _ “Fuck. That’s … a lot. Just … get her back here and we’ll see. It’s important to get her home first.” _

Rubbing at her eyes, Kara swallowed, “yeah. I, uh, I’ll see you soon. Maybe just … give me a day to settle her in. Can you take Kal for the night? Make sure he gets to school.”

_ “Of course. Of course we will. Kelly’s already dropped him off at school; she can take him to soccer practice as well.” _

“Okay. Thank her for me.”

_ “Sure thing.”  _ Alex hesitated for a moment.  _ “Kara? I’m sorry. I know this isn’t how you wanted it to go.” _

Choking back a sob, Kara drew in a ragged breath, “she’s alive. That’s all that matters to me.”

They hung up shortly after and Kara took a moment to compose herself before she stepped up to the door and opened it. Lena was nearly folding the last shirt she owned into the top of it and Kara had the sensation that she’d been eavesdropping, something sheepish in the stoop of her shoulders, the tips of her ears slightly pink.

“Is everything packed?”

“I- yeah, I don’t … have much,” Lena said.

Nodding, Kara gave her an uneven smile, “it’s fine, you’ve got a whole wardrobe at our house.”

Cocking her head to the side, Lena’s expression clouded in deep thought for a moment. “What’s it like? Our house, I mean.”

“It’s … big. It’s nice.”

With a sad scoff of laughter, Lena’s eyes roamed around the room. “I suppose anywhere is nice when compared to this.”

Masking a wince, Kara opened her mouth to reply when there was a yowling sound outside the window on what she assumed was the fire escape. Brow furrowing, Kara watched as Lena stalked over to the window and threw it open, and then her face softened as she smiled at the sight of a rough cat that jumped onto the windowsill and rubbed up against Lena’s arm.

Slamming the frosted window shut, Lena picked the cat up by the scruff of his neck and sighed, shaking her head before she cradled the squirming bundle in the corner of her elbow and slung her bag over one shoulder, giving Kara a wry smile that was  _ so _ Lena that it stunned her for a moment.

“I guess he’s coming too.”


	3. Chapter 3

Alex arranged everything for the flight back to National City, while a private car came to pick them up from outside Lena’s dingy apartment to take them to the private airstrip. Waiting on the tarmac, one superhero, one amnesiac and a wriggling cat, they watched in silence as a private jet eventually touched down.

It didn’t need refuelling and they were cleared to fly immediately. As the door opened and stairs descended, Kara climbed them first, sensing Lena’s unease. She wondered if she could remember being on a plane; her Lena had always hated flying.

Once they were inside, the door shut behind them and Kara took a seat on one of the cream leather chairs as Lena sat across from her, the mangy cat twisting in her arms as he bristled at the frigid air being pumped into the cabin.

“Where’s the pilot?” Lena asked after a moment, her brow furrowing slightly as she looked around, the short hallway to the empty cockpit making her feel uneasy.

“It flies itself.”

“And … this is  _ my _ plane? I designed this?”

Lips twisting into a rueful smile, Kara nodded, “you did. And  _ so _ many other things. Weapons, nano-technology, synthetic antidotes, image inducers.”

“Oh. So, what did I do, exactly? The article I read said that I- I was a CEO. But … I was smart?”

“The smartest person I’ve ever met. You ran L-Corp  _ and  _ worked on projects that you were passionate about. You wanted to help people, help change the world.”

“And what do  _ you  _ do?”

“Me?” Kara asked as mild surprise crossed her face. “I’m a reporter.”

“Oh.”

The conversation lapsed into silence after that, Kara aching to talk to her, to find some kernel of her Lena somewhere inside. She looked down at her hands in her lap as the plane started to move of its own accord, careening down the runway and taking off smoothly, unable to bring herself to look at Lena. Her eyes knew she was seeing the person who knew her in ways no one else did, her heart did too, but her mind knew it wasn’t Lena and it left her conflicted and confused and aching.

Lena seemed perfectly content with the silence, and not the least bit bothered by flying, turning in her seat to lean her head against the open window. She pretended to sleep, her breaths slow and even, not moving a muscle as the cat jumped down and prowled along the carpeted floor. Kara could tell she was pretending but didn’t disturb her, knowing there would be so much weighing on her mind, knowing that she was probably even more confused than Kara was. 

Instead, she scratched the cat behind his notched ears as he rubbed up against her legs, purring, and stared at Lena’s curled up form. It was easier to pretend she was her Lena when they weren’t talking and she wasn’t reminded of her lack of memories. The curve of her shoulder, her dark hair, all of it familiar. But there was that heartbeat, foreign and unnerving and it made Kara feel cold as she thought about it. How could you change someone’s  _ heartbeat? _

The flight was just shy of four hours, neither of them speaking a word the rest of the way, Kara feeling restless and uncomfortable as Lena continued to pretend she was asleep. Kara had so much still to say and didn’t know how to say it, didn’t know how to apologise and say all the things she’d promised herself she would when she found Lena. But this  _ wasn’t  _ Lena.

This was a stranger. A stranger she was taking home to the house she’d shared with her wife, raising Kal together while Lena spent her days at the office and Kara saved the world. There was no conceivable way that Kara could tell  _ Tess  _ the truth about who she was, but she was taking her home to their house where she’d always been able to take the glasses and the cape off, neither human Kara nor Supergirl, just … Kara.

And would it even be worth it? Would Lena recover her memories after time, if things went back to normal and Kara played house with this stranger, let her around their kid she didn’t know, introduced her to friends she’d known since Midvale? Or would Kara be left with a woman that she couldn’t bear herself to be parted from, spending the rest of her life clinging to the slim chance that one day Tess would vanish and Lena would be standing there in her body once more?

She didn’t know how long was a reasonable amount of time to work it out. A year? Two? Five or ten? When were you supposed to give up on someone you loved never coming back? She’d already spent four years scouring the planet for Lena, and now, with that thin thread of hope, she was  _ sure _ she’d get her wife back. So sure that it would convince Kara to hold on long after everyone else had given up hope. It was what she did; Kara believed in people, hoped harder than anyone else, clung to the possibility of things getting better. Without that, she didn’t have anything else to fight for.

Brooding and pensive, Kara was grateful when the plane finally descended, Lena stirring just before landing, a convenient time for her to pretend she was awake. Kara wasn’t sure if she was just uneasy around her, not knowing what to say with all the gaps in her memories, all the hope on Kara’s face. She couldn’t hold that against her. 

Instead, she just gave Lena a faint smile and nodded before averting her eyes to stare out one of the small windows. The day was heading towards late afternoon, even though they’d gained another two hours of sunlight, and the sky was slowly darkening outside, National City a hazy, sprawling mass dropped into the orange desert. 

Kara had the antsy urge to step out of the plane and fly, to burn off her agitation, her frustration. She was exhausted though, in so many ways, and knew the burnout wouldn’t be worth the brief reprieve the weightless moment of freedom it would bring. 

Once they were on the private airstrip Lena owner, a few miles out in the desert, the engine died and the steps descended, letting in the cool air and the sweet smell of sand. Climbing to her feet, Kara gave Lena an encouraging smile, more convincing than she felt, and gestured to the door.

“Shall we?”

Gathering up her worn bag and tucking the cat beneath her arm, Lena followed Kara off the plane, where a host of cars were waiting for them. DEO agents waited beside their SUV’s with guns in hand to provide an armed escort, and Kara’s stomach sank as she let out a heavy sigh, listening to Lena’s heart stagger in her chest.

Turning around to face her, she took in the pale face, wrought with fear as her green eyes widened with panic. Giving her an apologetic smile, Kara took a slow step towards her.

“You’re safe. We know these people; they’re going to be keeping an eye on you for the next few days, just in case …”

Suspicion flickered in Lena’s eyes before she nodded and stuck to Kara’s shadow, following her to a car where a brunette woman stood, arms followed across her chest in a look of bravado, which stood in contrast to the pinched look of worry on her face.

Kara gave Alex an exasperated look at the unnecessary force of their chaperoned guards - although she was secretly relieved, unwilling to let Lena out of her sight for even a second. Alex was too busy staring at Lena like she’d seen a ghost though, her face pale and her lips parted, as if she’d thought Kara had been wrong.

“Lena-“

Alex’s whisper died on her lips as her shoulders went slack, and Lena fixed her with a wary stare, her jaw tightening for a moment as she swallowed thickly.

“It’s Tess.”

Wincing slightly, Alex nodded, “right, Tess. Sorry.”

“Tess,” Kara firmly cut in before it all became too much for Lena, before she spooked and tried to run and made it more difficult for everyone else. Although, she hated to have to use that made up name, cursing whoever came up with it, whoever made Lena think it belonged to her. “Get in the back; I’ll be there now.”

For whatever reason - Kara couldn’t say if it was because this version of her was less stubborn, more inclined to listen to orders, or because she could sense the tension in Kara’s voice and body language - Lena silently climbed into the back of the car, and Kara eased the door almost fully closed.

Grabbing the cuff of Alex’s shirt, Kara towed her a few steps away and lowered her voice to an irritable hiss. “What are you  _ doing?” _

“Making sure no one  _ kidnaps _ her again,” Alex quietly snapped back.

“You’re going to freak her out. She doesn’t  _ know _ you, Alex; don’t overload her.”

“I’m  _ not,  _ I’m just here to do my job.”

Biting back a scathing sigh, Kara closed her eyes and swallowed. Alex reached out and squeezed her shoulder and Kara opened her eyes again, her anger dissipating as she deflated, a mournful look in her eyes as she looked at her sister.

“I’m sorry,” Alex murmured, glancing towards the tinted windows of the car, “I just- I was caught off guard. It really  _ is _ her.”

“On the surface,” Kara said in a clipped tone.

“I’ll ride in the other car,” Alex said after a moment, “give you two some space.  _ But  _ there will be guards posted around the perimeter for your house;  _ you  _ need to sleep and you won’t do that if you’re worried someone is going to break in and kidnap her. It’s all being kept airtight at the moment so no one knows she’s been found, but … I’m sure it’ll be out by the morning, if not tonight.”

Nodding, Kara gave her sister’s arm a grateful squeeze and then she sighed heavily. Raking a hand through her hair, she gave her a grim smile.

“Is Kal okay?”

“Kelly’s with him right now. I’ll go straight home, I promise. He doesn’t know anything yet; I’ll let you talk to him.”

“Okay. Good.”

Squeezing her arm again, Kara turned to the car and eased open the door before sliding inside. Buckling up, she watched as Alex’s gaze lingered on the car for a second longer before she turned and made for another SUV as the other agents packed into the other cars.

“Who was that?” Lena asked after a tense moment of silence as the agent in the front seat started the engine and they waited as the cars got into formation.

Closing her eyes, Kara tipped her head back against the headrest and swallowed thickly, the tenuous thread inside her keeping it together wearing away by the second. She just wanted to cry, so run down and tired, sitting beside her amnesiac wife while it felt like she was a million miles away. It was all too much.

Letting out a listless sigh, the pressure building up behind her eyes, Kara’s bottom lip trembled as she hoarsely replied. She couldn’t bring herself to look, to see the confusion on Lena’s face as she tried to puzzle it together.

“My sister.”

“Oh. We knew each other well?”

“She’s one of your oldest friends,” Kara miserably whispered.

“Oh.”

The silence was almost painful after that. There had very rarely been moments of silence between the two women that had been painful or uncomfortable, but it was overwhelming at that moment. Kara felt like she was being suffocated, seized by the urge to get out of the car as it rumbled away from the airstrip, tearing up clouds of dust behind it as the convoy progressed.

It would’ve been preferable to  _ walk,  _ even. Anything to get away from the claustrophobic feeling of panic that settled over her. She just clenched her hands and her teeth, her whole body rigid as she forced herself to breathe deeply and silently repeat a Kryptonian mantra in her head.

The hour-long drive was even more unbearable than the plane - at least then there’d had been enough space for them to sit more than two feet apart - the car silent, save for the jumbled radio transmissions from the other cars, and Kara’s relief was palpable as they drove through the wide streets in the foothills on the outskirts of National City.

It was the wealthiest area there, each house set on an acre of land at least, gated with millionaires and celebrities living behind the walls. Their own house was no different, aside from the fact that it was undeniably the most blatant display of wealth and technological advancement on the West Coast.

The walls were creamy limestone, swaying palm trees and ginkgos and yellow medallions planted behind them, the cultivated garden neat and minimal. The gate required Kara’s handprint and retinal scan before it parted, made of reinforced Nth metal and ten feet high.

A wide, gravel driveway led up to the sprawling length of a glass, stone and metal house. It boasted three stories, a feat of modern architecture that Lena had busied herself with for two years after they’d hastily eloped as teenagers. They’d only lived a single year in it together and as Kara stared at it with hard blue eyes, she felt tears press behind them, burning to well up.

Blinking rapidly, she admired the way the setting sun turned the windows a flaming orange, the yellow sandstone a buttery yellow, and the orange foothills sloping up behind it. Lena was craning her neck to stare at it open-mouthed, a sight that was both gut-wrenching and amusing.  _ Her  _ Lena had never wanted for anything, the best presented to her and taken as if it was expected, but this Lena had lived in the most dismally squalid apartment Kara had ever seen and it hurt to think about what she would’ve endured that hadn’t been spoken about yet.

As the car stopped outside the front of the house, Kara made herself move, her limbs stiff and a queasy fluttering in her stomach as her nerves got the better of her. To meet Lena in a different city, far from the life they’d shared was one thing, but to bring her back to their house as if everything was normal felt  _ wrong _ .

Peering sideways at Lena as she rounded the front of the car, cat and bag in hand, Kara just felt guilty. It shouldn’t have been like this. She should’ve been there to protect her wife, should’ve tracked her down within minutes of her being gone. The truth was, she hadn’t known Lena was gone for  _ hours,  _ the trail already half-cold before she’d even been made aware of the fact that she’d never made it home.

“Come on,” Kara muttered, shoulders hunched as the car behind them tore up gravel and she listened to the distant orders doled out to the guards setting up a perimeter to patrol for the night.

Pressing her hand to the keypad, it scanned Kara’s palm and unlocked, the bulletproof glass door sliding across to admit them into the foyer beyond.

A disembodied voice greeted her and she heard Lena’s heart skip a beat behind her.  _ “Welcome home, Mrs Danvers.” _

The foyer was open to three stories, a cylindrical space made entirely of glass, honeyed sunlight bathing the whole space yellow as it shone in through the massive panes of glass. Three long lights dangled into the middle of the foyer on chains of varying length, and the lights flared a harsh blue as the motion sensors picked up her movements.

Crossing the marble floors, breathing in the smell of dust from Kara’s general neglect, they bypassed the glass elevator and stepped through an open archway and further into the house.

Lights clicked on wherever they passed by, the ones behind them fading back to darkness, and Kara brought Lena through to the open length of kitchen, dining room and living room that took up the entire bottom floor of the house.

The space was minimal but cosy, dark wood panelling for the kitchen cupboards, imported slate feature walls and softened leather sofas and tables covered in half-folded laundry, soccer equipment and disassembled Lego. The entire back wall was glass, and Kara stared out at the flat surface of the pool as it reflected the sunset, the foothills right on their back doorstep, a paradise of native plants and trees that made the air smell sweet. Even in the summer, their garden was always a riot of colours and the grass a trim carpet of green.

“This is our house?” Lena quietly asked, her voice halting and slow with disbelief.

Deflating as she stared outside, watching as dusk was ushered in and the quiet house settled around them, warm from the sunshine that had flooded in all day, Kara pressed her lips together and closed her eyes.

“It’s one of them, yes.”

“It’s …  _ incredible.” _

Kara’s lips twisted with a wry smile and she let out a quiet, breathless laugh. “You designed it.”

“Oh.”

She was silent for a moment, her footsteps slow and squeaking on the marble as she turned slowly, and then Lena spoke again.

“Is this where I … you know.”

“No,” Kara whispered. “That was at your office. You were staying at the penthouse in the city because … I was out of town.”

“A penthouse in the city,” Lena murmured to herself, “right.”

There was another moment of silence before Lena sucked in a deep breath. “So, just  _ how _ rich am I exactly?”

Turning slowly, Kara smiled, her tired eyes softening as she tilted her head to the side and gave Lena a sympathetic look.

“Rich enough to have anything you’ve ever dreamed of. It’s all yours now.”

“Ours, you mean.”

Wincing, Kara slowly inclined her head, “right. Ours.”

Nodding, looking a little scared of how drastically different this all was, how out of her depth she was, Lena let the cat twist in her arms and drop to the floor. He slunk off through the house and the two women were left staring at each other, Lena’s green eyes wide with nervousness.

“Look, Lena-“

“Tess.”

“Right,” Kara impatiently pressed on, “Tess. You don’t have to do this, you know. You can … stay at the penthouse. Make a new life for yourself. I know it’s a lot to take in.”

Cocking her head to the side, Lena narrowed her eyes with a scrutinising look of interest. “You’re a reporter; you’re not rich.”

“No, I’m not.”

“How did we meet?”

Opening and closing her mouth, Kara looked away and then back at her, wrapping her arms around herself. “We met in middle school.”

_ “Really?” _

“Really,” Kara said with a small smile. “You were already a genius; I was thirteen, you were eleven. We would tell each other everything. There was so much that we had in common, things that should’ve been … impossible. You always used to say the universe had conspired since the start of time to line everything up  _ perfectly _ so we could meet that day in history class.”

Wrinkling her nose slightly in an endearing manner, her eyes soft with an almost yearning look, as if she wished so dearly she could remember, or wish for it to happen to her, Lena smiled slightly.  Kara couldn’t help but return the smile, but it faded quickly as their circumstances crept back over her. Turning away from Lena, Kara rubbed at the back of her neck, talking quickly as she scrambled for something to distract herself with.

“So, uh, are you- are you hungry? We can order takeout. There’s that Thai place that you-“

Cutting herself off, Kara pressed her lips together and Lena shifted uneasily. “Thai is fine.”

Nodding, Kara fiddled with the wedding band on her left hand as she stared at the floor. “Do you want to see the menu or …?”

“I’ll eat anything.”

“Sure.”

Kara walked over to her laptop on the table and put in a delivery for their usual order, needing no time to recall what it was Lena always used to get, even though it had been four years since she’d had to do it.  Then, with nothing to do, Kara’s eyes landed on Lena’s bag and she started, blinking in surprise. “Oh, um, do you want to put your things away? I can … give you a tour or something.”

“That’d be good.”

“Well … living room, kitchen, dining room,” Kara said with a sweeping gesture. “Help yourself to anything in the fridge. The pool  _ is  _ heated if you- if you like swimming.”

“Oh … I don’t know if I can swim.”

Pausing, Kara’s mouth thinned and she turned around, stalking towards an open doorway. Stepping inside, she swept a hand around the place, her eyes restlessly darting around as she tried not to think.

“Another living room.”

Back out the door, she made for the other side of the house, passing through the spacious kitchen and rounding the table that hadn’t been used in weeks.

“This is the parlour room. You used to be really good at pool - and poker. You also liked whiskey.”

Kara wanted to wince at the flat, callousness of her tone but she was getting more upset with each passing second.

She opened closets for coats and cleaning supplies and wine racks, a small sauna and a heated magnesium pool that was fitted with yellow sun lamps for Kara’s use, and a staircase down to the basement for Lena’s workshop with all its machinery covered in thick dust. No one had been down there in years, not since she’d disappeared, and Kara felt a little faint as her heart pulsed in her throat.

They took the curved stairs up instead of the glass elevator and she opened the doors to various spare bedrooms, the empty room where Kara practised her combat skills, her cluttered home office and Lena’s undisturbed one - another room Kara hadn’t been inside in at least three years.

There was the playroom for Kal, and his adjoining bedroom, multiple bathrooms, a library and a games room. On the top floor was their bedroom, strewn with clothes - some of them Lena’s, worn to bed at night until the smell had faded - and a mess of papers and books and takeout containers. Kara shifted with vague embarrassment, looking at the rumpled bedsheets and the cluster of coffee cups, the automatic curtains lowered and giving the room a gloomy air of despair.

“Um … sorry, I’m not usually … this much of a slob. I, uh, this is … our room. Your clothes are- are still in the closet so … well, if you need anything, it’s yours. You can have this room if you want. I’ll call a cleaner tomorrow to … you know, sort this all out.”

“It’s fine,” Lena murmured with a clouded look on her face, her eyes solemn as she looked around, taking in the framed photos and itching to get closer and look at them. “I’ll take one of the spare rooms; I don’t want to kick you out. It’s more your room than mine.”

“Well, you bought the house, so,” Kara shrugged.

Lena let out a quiet scoff of laughter, “I don’t think it says  _ Tess Mercer _ on the dotted line so no, I didn’t.”

Lips twitching, Kara shrugged again, ducking her head down before she backed out of the door and set off down the hall.

“Any preference for bedroom?” she asked over her shoulder as Lena followed after her.

Shrugging indifferently, Lena stepped around Kara and led her to the other side of the house, where she stopped outside a door. It was as far from Kara’s room as she could get without going to the second floor - Kara was sure the thought of Kal was the only thing that turned Lena off picking one downstairs - an en-suite the size of Lena’s last apartment and a walk-in closet for her meagre bag of clothes.

“This one is fine.”

“Great. Well … I’ll let you get settled in. If you want to shower or need toothpaste or anything ... everything you need should all be in the hallway closet.”

“Thanks.”

Lingering for a moment, Kara rocked on her heels with her hands clasped before her, as if building towards saying something. The moment Lena looked at her expectantly, she flushed and brushed her hair out of her face.

“Okay, I’ll, uh, let you know when the food arrives.”

“Sounds good.”

Turning around, Kara rubbed her palms together, her shoulders hunched as she waited for the delayed sound of the door squeaking open and then closed. As soon as she heard Lena’s heartbeat inside the room, she exhaled forcefully, nearly doubling over as she caved in on herself.

Kara barely made it into her room before the first muffled sob clawed its way up her throat, her hand covering her mouth as she fell back against the door. It thudded closed, a little too loud in the stillness of the house, and she dropped her hand as she drew in a shuddering breath.

The tears came hot and fast, her chest rising and falling quickly, and Kara dug the heels of her palms into her eyes as she shook with quiet sobs. Somehow, she managed to walk to the bathroom, tearing her glasses off so fast that the suit materialised, before she shed that and then her clothes underneath.

The shower was scalding as she jammed her hand against the keypad and set it at random, but she didn’t feel it anyway, bracing herself against the cool slate wall as water poured from the ceiling like rain. She couldn’t help herself, the sobs ragged as they spilt out of her, pent up for so many months now, and she let it all out with the cover of the shower muffling the sound. 

By the time she’d composed herself enough to get out, her cheeks were pink and her skin was pruned. Her wet hair was plastered to her tanned skin and Kara dried off quickly, observing the bloodshot red of her eyes, even as it vanished quickly with her healing factor, before she got dressed in clean clothes.

In plaid pants and a sweatshirt, she padded downstairs, frowning at the sound of Lena’s footsteps and heartbeat downstairs. She emerged into the open space to find her clearing the table, the laundry basket of unfolded clothes set on the kitchen counters, the Lego all clipped together in one giant block, and Kara’s work swept to one side.

The table was set with cutlery and Lena was opening and closing cupboards, turning to look at Kara, a flicker of surprise on her face as if she could see that she’d been crying. She didn't comment on it though, looking vaguely uncomfortable.

“Where do you keep the plates?”

Walking over to her, Kara opened the correct cupboard and pulled out two from the stack before moving over to the table and setting them down. Rubbing at her tired eyes she stood there for a moment and then sighed.

“Do you want a drink? I could use a drink.”

“Uh, sure,” Lena slowly replied.

“I’ve got that L’Art de Martell cognac. If ever there was a good moment to drink it …”

Shrugging, Lena put her hands in the pockets of her worn jeans, the t-shirt she wore so threadbare and full of holes that Kara had the vague sense of seeing through it. 

“I normally just drink beer.”

“You  _ hate _ \- never mind. I’ll see if we have any.”

“Cognac is fine,” Lena lightly assured her.

Grimacing as she turned away, Kara moved towards the parlour room where they kept all their liquor on a narrow console pushed up against the back wall. She grabbed the expensive bottle of cognac and fished out the small decanter of alien liquor, taking a swig right from it to take the edge off before hesitating and hiding it. Lena knew it was fatal; Tess did not.

It pooled in her stomach, warm and strong, the edge of her sadness and frustration blurring a little as the alcohol hit her, and Kara carried the cognac back through to the kitchen. Fetching two tumblers from a high cupboard with all the glassware, she poured generous amounts in both, even though it would do nothing for her, and set one down before Lena.

She murmured her thanks and took a sip, a furrowed look of surprise creasing her brow as she found it to her liking. The disembodied voice interrupted them then.

_ “Mrs Danvers, there is a visitor at the front gate. Facial recognition is unknown. Vehicle license plate, 7TY-“ _

“It’s fine,” Kara said.

It would only be the delivery driver, and if it wasn’t, she was sure she could manage  _ one _ person trying to attack.

Draining her glass, Kara set it down on the counter a little heavy-handed and caught Lena staring at her with a wary look in her eyes.

“That voice …”

“Hope. The AI you created. She runs the whole house - locks, lights, curtains, gates, garage, electronics, security system. She even manages the pool and sauna. One of your better inventions.”

Blinking in surprise as her eyebrows rose, Lena didn’t say anything else as she took another sip of her drink and Kara went to fetch their food. She’d ordered the usual amount, not thinking about how that would look to Tess, and when she set the armful of paper bags down on the table, she caught sight of her face and paused.

“Are we- is someone else joining us?” Lena hesitantly asked, her voice tight with the slight strain of panic.

“Oh, um, no,” Kara said, scrambling for an excuse, “I just- I didn’t know what you wanted so I … ordered a lot. Just in case.”

Opening and closing her mouth, Lena frowned and sank down onto a chair.

“Is … there a problem?” Kara slowly asked.

With a choked laugh, Lena shook her head, cheeks dimpling with a smile as she ruffled her choppy hair. “No, I just- I’ve never seen so much food before.”

Kara felt like the air had been knocked out of her and sank down onto her own chair, stomach lurching uncomfortably.

“Oh. I, uh, I saw your apartment … has it been hard for you? That’s a stupid question, of  _ course  _ it must’ve.”

Lena let out a quiet chuckle as Kara quickly unpacked the bags, covering the table with takeout containers. “I don’t know any different. To me … all  _ this _ is weird. Having so much food … it’s going to be strange to not feel hungry for a change. I’ve never slept in a proper bed before. Or been  _ anywhere _ this … nice.”

Face softening with a sad smile, Kara ducked her head and opened the container nearest to her to distract herself, fingers trembling slightly as steam wafted up from the Pan Narm Satay.

“It upsets you,” Lena observed.

Kara didn’t know why, but the gentle curiosity of this Lena felt so  _ naïve _ and that upset her even more. The similarities were there, and she didn’t really know anything about Tess yet, but she was different enough to make Kara’s heart ache with the pain of each thing that highlighted the fact that it wasn’t Lena.

There was none of her pride and earned arrogance, her wry humour and fragile need to be loved, so insecure and anxious after being let down by her family so many times. This Lena didn’t remember a family to feel insecure about, to need that validation and love from Kara. She was quiet and subdued, as if trying to go unnoticed. She didn’t shine like Lena did.

“Yes,” Kara admitted.

“Why?”

Reaching for another container, Kara opened the Pad Thai and was silent as she scooped some onto her plate. She shrugged after a moment, digging her fork in as she grimaced. The urge to cry wasn’t as strong now, but the guilt was still enough to drown her, the knot still a painful pressure on her chest.

“You should never have had to live like that; it’s my fault.”

“What could you have done to stop them?”

“More than I did,” Kara bitterly muttered.

Lena had no reply to that, so out of the loop with the truth of Kara's abilities, and they descended into silence, eating their way through a portion of the food. Kara knew she’d have to sneak more calories later on when Lena wasn’t around, and the thought of having to sneak around in her own home was grim.

Once they’d finished eating, Kara cleared everything away while Lena nervously hovered around, looking queasy from eating too much as she wrapped her arms around herself and watched the cat pick at some chicken Kara had set on a plate for him. 

It was still early on in the night but the awkwardness between them wouldn’t let up, and Kara was tired enough to be honest when she said she was going to turn in for the night.

“If you need anything … just knock. I don’t mind. But … can you promise me one thing?”

“Sure.”

Brow creasing with an anxious look, Kara chewed on her bottom lip as she twisted the rings on her finger. “Can you stay inside tonight? There are DEO agents guarding the place but … I’d sleep better if I knew you were safe inside.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sure.”

Nodding Kara rubbed the back of her neck and hovered. “If you want to use the computer in your office, it’s thumbprint activated so … it’ll obviously work for you. It’s your office, your  _ house,  _ so you can … do whatever you like. Hope can help you if you have any questions about things.”

“Great.”

“Okay, well, goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Lena murmured in reply.

She was slow to leave, trudging up each step at a human’s pace before she stepped into her room and closed the door. The lights were dim and she stepped into the bedroom to brush her teeth and wash her face.

Kara imagined that sleep would elude her, but it came mercifully fast, even if it wasn’t deep. She was troubled by bad dreams, all of them full of Lena, and even while unconscious, she was aware of the strange heartbeat at the other end of the house as Lena lay awake, unable to sleep in the unfamiliar house, in a  _ real bed,  _ on the other side of the country. 

The cat curled up on top of the sheets that Tess bet cost nearly as much as she made in a year, and while she kept telling herself that she was safe, she didn’t feel like it. It was all too good to be true.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy valentine's day besties!! sorry this story is so miserable but I don't have any happy sc content to upload lmao

Kara started awake late the next morning, the sunlight slanting through the blinds she hadn’t closed at an angle that was closer to noon than dawn. Struggling upright, Kara blearily blinked, rubbing at her tired eyes and running a hand through her messy hair before fumbling for her glasses. 

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept through a sunrise, or for such a long, uninterrupted bout, and sitting amidst the tangled blankets, she felt off-balance. For the slightest second, she forgot  _ why _ , and it slammed into her with dizzying realisation as the breath was expelled from her lungs.

Scrambling out of bed, Kara yanked the door open and listened to the odd heartbeat coming from downstairs. She had to force herself slow to a human’s speed as she made her way downstairs and stepped into the open plan living space to the sight of Lena standing at the coffee machine, eyeing it with doubt.

Kara’s heart twinged painfully in her chest and as she drew in shallow, rapid breaths, her hands trembling as she wrung them. And just for a second, she allowed herself to believe that everything was normal, and it was Lena making coffee like she had so many mornings before, until her wife turned to look at her and gave her a tentative ghost of a smile.

“Good morning.”

“Morning,” Kara replied, flushing as she ran a hand through her hair. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sleep in so late.”

With a slightly bigger smile, Lena shrugged, unbothered. “You looked like you could use a proper night’s sleep.”

Nodding, Kara looked at her for a long moment, taking in the bruise-like shadows beneath Lena’s eyes with dismay. It didn’t look like she’d slept much herself.

“How- how did you sleep?”

“It felt a bit weird being somewhere strange,” Lena admitted, tapping at a few buttons on the screen as she tried to get the machine working.

“Here,” Kara murmured, quickly crossing over to her and trying not to wince as Lena flinched away from her, taking a step back. “You, uh, you have to program the type of bean and milk you want to use. Hope can do it, if you ask.”

“Oh.”

“Still take it black or …?”

Surprise flashed across Lena’s face before she gave Kara a quizzical look. “Yeah, I- I do.”

“I guess not everything has changed then,” Kara murmured, inputting the coffee and shifting the cup beneath the group head. 

“Honestly, we just didn’t keep creamer at work,” Lena said with an apologetic smile.

With a snort of laughter, Kara shook her head and set another cup beneath the hot water dispenser to fill it up. She needed a cup of tea to calm herself.

“Did you eat breakfast?” Kara suddenly asked, a flicker of panic crossing her face.

Giving her a nonchalant shrug as the coffee machine stopped dripping into her mug, Lena took a sip and then gave her a wry smile.

“I don’t eat much.”

Kara had the uneasy sensation that it was more out of necessity than desire and she opened and closed her mouth as she steeped her green tea before looking up at Lena.

“How about I make some bacon and eggs?”

“Sure.”

As she pulled out food and pans, Lena hovered nearby and watched, looking out of place as she cupped her coffee between her hands as if it might be taken away from her at any moment. Giving her a faint smile, Kara nodded to the row of stools.

“Take a seat.”

Nodding, Lena silently obeyed and Kara could feel her eyes on her back as she set bacon into a large skillet and put the toast down.

“How do you want your eggs?”

Lena hesitated before replying, “how did I use to take them?”

Pausing, shoulders tense as she held a pair of tongs in hand, Kara swallowed. “It … doesn’t matter; how do  _ you  _ like them?”

“I don’t mind. I like them however I can get them.”

Closing her eyes for a brief moment, Kara ducked her head in acknowledgement and picked up an egg, cracking it into the skillet alongside the bacon.

Once everything was sizzling in the pan, she turned around and gave Lena a rueful smile. “You liked them sunnyside up.”

Lena silently took the nugget of information in as she slowly nodded, her coffee cup nearly empty, and Kara gestured to it, arching an eyebrow.

“Want a refill?”

Blinking in surprise, Lena bit her lip as she hesitated. “Is that okay?”

Expression softening, Kara walked over to the island counter and reached out for the cup, her voice gentle as she replied. “Of course it’s okay. You can have as much coffee as you like.”

She rinsed the cup out and set it beneath the machine and turned her attention back to their breakfast. Buttering the toast, she dished up Lena’s first and then a modest serving for herself, even though Kara was surprisingly ravenous for the first time in months.

Putting a seat between them, Kara picked up a slice of bacon and bit into it as she thought for a moment. “I, um, I’ve got some things I need to sort out today. I hope you don’t mind.”

“I’m used to being alone.”

“If it’s alright with you, I’m going to see some people about- about getting help for you. Just … maybe a medical, some MRI scans and … stuff like that. Just to see if that gets any answers.”

“Sure.”

“Kal will be staying with Alex and her girlfriend for a few days, just while you … settle in, but I’ll need to go and see him and explain too, of course.”

Lena hesitated, a forkful of food hanging midair as her brow furrowed for a moment. “You said he’s … eight, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And I’m …”

“Twenty-six.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but how did I end up a parent at eighteen?”

Kara let out a strained laugh and took a gulp of tea as she wracked her brain for a logical explanation. Of course, the most logical one was close to the truth, and she opted for that instead of spinning some absurd tale.

“I was adopted at thirteen. That’s how we met, when I moved to Midvale to live with my new family. Well, when I was twenty, I was … contacted about an orphaned nephew who needed a home. We were both so young but I- I couldn’t leave him, and instead of leaving, you … you proposed. We got married straight away and I think both of our families were a little …  _ concerned,  _ but … it was just the three of us and we were …  _ perfect.” _

“Did I like being a mom or an aunt or whatever?”

With a tender smile, Kara gave her a shy look of adoration. “You were scared at the start but you enjoyed spoiling him. We’re the only parents he’s ever known and you put him first in  _ everything.  _ Even with your job and- and everything else. It wasn’t easy but yes, I think you liked it a lot.”

There was a flicker of pain in Kara’s eyes and she cleared her throat, taking another sip of tea before she finished her breakfast in silence. 

Once they were finished, Kara shooed Lena away from the dishes and quickly loaded it herself, glancing around the room at the strewn mess and making a mental note to tidy up later.

Afterwards, she disappeared upstairs to shower and get dressed and then hunted Lena down, finding her in her room. Knocking on the door, Kara hesitated and then waited for Lena to open the door with an apprehensive look on her face.

“Is everything okay?” Kara blurted out.

With a dismissive wave of her hand, Lena let out a quiet laugh, looking embarrassed. “Oh. Yeah. I just- I’ve never had a bath before, so I was … just considering it.”

Giving her a crooked smile, Kara fiddled with her rings. “You should; they’re relaxing.”

“Okay.”

“Um, well, I’m just … heading out now. I’ve left my number on the fridge if you need to call me. Do you have a cell phone?”

With a scoff of laughter, Lena realised Kara was being serious and quickly pressed her lips together. “No, no, I don’t.”

“Oh. Well, there’s a phone in your office. Or one in the kitchen. Or one in the foyer.”

“Okay.”

“If you need me to pick you up anything while I’m out …”

“I’ll be sure to call.”

Smiling, Kara nodded, “well … enjoy your bath.”

Nodding, Lena eased the door shut and Kara quickly jogged down the stairs and slipped through the door to the spacious garage. A row of sports cars collecting dust sat in a line and Kara plucked the keys off a hook inside the door before walking over to a sleek grey Ferrari SG90 Stradale.

It had been a while since Kara had driven anything but the Land Rover, but she was filled with so much tension that she couldn’t burn off in the gym or through flying, out of fear of being discovered and an urgency to complete her tasks and get home, that she thought a supercar might help. At the very least, it was fast and luxurious and the smell of leather and the purring engine was enough to soothe her as she tore out of the garage and down the long driveway.

Agents were still posted outside and Kara gave them curt nods as she turned onto the wide, spotless street. As high up in the foothills as the house was, she could see all of National City spread out below her, made hazy from a veil of dust and smog, and she took the meandering switchback roads down as she made for Alex’s house out in the suburbs.

Parking on the driveway, beside her sister’s SUV, Kara let herself into the house and called out. “Hello?”

“Kara!”

A wide grin broke out on Kara’s face at the sight of a small boy, with dark unruly hair and her blue eyes, inherited from their twin father’s. At eight years old, he reached Kara’s chest and she laughed as he threw his arms around her waist, returning the hug and kissing the top of his head.

“Hey, buddy!” she quietly exclaimed.

He pulled back and gave her a gap-toothed smile, one of his milk teeth missing as he bared his teeth at her. “I lost a tooth!”

“Oh, wow, look at that!” Kara exclaimed, bending over to look at it as she smiled with amusement. “Did you put it under your pillow?”

“No. Alex gave me five dollars for it though.”

Clicking her tongue as she looked up to see her sister standing there, still in her pyjamas, Kara smiled faintly. Resting a hand on Kal’s shoulder, Kara looked down and blinked, realising he’d gotten taller. How long had it been since she’d taken a break to spend time with him for longer than ten minutes to put him to bed or drop him off at school?

“I was going to call,” Alex said after a moment. “Have you seen the news this morning?”

“No.”

“Let me make some coffee.”

“Hey, Kal, have you finished your homework?”

“Kelly helped me with it last night.”

“Oh. Okay, well, have you been practising your Kryptonian? How’re your glyphs looking?”

He rolled his eyes in a manner that was entirely Lena and sighed, and Kara chuckled as she ruffled his hair. 

“I’ll talk to you in a bit.”

Walking through the house, Kara took a seat at the kitchen table, her eyes snagging on a stack of forms. She reached out for it, listening to the sounds of Alex making coffee and her eyebrows rose slightly.

“Adoption paperwork?”

Letting out a weary sigh, Alex gave her a grim look, “it’s a  _ nightmare _ . Kelly and I think it’s time though.”

“Don’t they like for you to be married for that sort of thing?”

Giving her a sheepish smile, Alex walked over with two cups and set one down before Kara and took a seat across from her.

“So, I’ve already got the ring …”

“Oh my God!” Kara exclaimed, a stunned look of delight on her face, “when did you do  _ that?  _ You didn’t tell me.”

With a slight wince of guilt, Alex shrugged half-heartedly, “you’ve been distracted with your own problems. For a while now. It seemed a bit … I don’t know, trivial to bother you with  _ ring shopping.” _

“Alex,” Kara said with a pained whine in her voice, guilt clawing at her, “I wouldn’t have thought it was trivial. It’s important to you; it’s amazing. Really. I’m  _ so  _ happy for you.  _ Both  _ of you.”

“She hasn’t said yes yet.”

Alex said it jokingly but Kara could read the tension in her face and torso and gave her sister a comforting smile.

“She’ll say yes.”

“Right. Well, anyway … how is it?”

Opening and closing her mouth, Kara’s smile dropped into a clouded look of frustration and concern. Fiddling with the handle of the mug, Kara’s mouth thinned and she clenched her teeth.

“I don’t know what I was expecting,” Kara murmured, “but it’s … harder than I thought. The differences- I just- I want her back, Alex. It sounds selfish to say it, because she’s  _ back _ , physically, but it’s not the same. It’s like looking at a shell; I would rather have her mind programmed as a hologram than her body.”

“No one would call you selfish for wanting that. But it’s- it’s only been a day. I’m sure it’ll be fine when she settles in. Kelly has been thinking of some good therapists to put her in touch with, and she’s going to talk to Andrea about using some of Obsidian’s tech to run scans. Brainy might be able to get inside her mind too, maybe see if there’s a mental block. And J’onn too. We have options.”

Letting out a listless breath as she sank in her seat, Kara massaged a tender spot above her left eye and took a sip of coffee.

“You look better, anyway,” Alex said after a moment.

“Didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn for the search effort,” Kara snorted, shaking her head.

“How’s she settling in?”

Raking both hands through her hair, Kara covered her face and shook her head as she let out a quiet groan.

“I just want to cry. You should’ve seen her face, Alex. She looks at everything like it’s the first time she’s ever  _ seen  _ it. Food. The house. The  _ bath.  _ She can’t remember ever sleeping on a proper  _ bed;  _ she had a mattress in her apartment.”

“Your house is impressive to  _ anyone.” _

“She has a cat! Lena  _ hated  _ cats and now we have this mangy stray that she didn’t want to leave behind. And  _ God,  _ her name. Never have I hated the sound of a name  _ more _ .  _ Tess. _ ”

“You can’t expect her to just suddenly answer to something new after  _ one day,” _ Alex reasoned.

“But it’s  _ not her name,”  _ Kara snapped, “it’s some stupid alias that was on the  _ fake _ driver's license in her pocket when she woke up.”

Giving her a pitying look, Alex reached across the table and took her sister’s hand in her own, giving it an urgent squeeze. 

“Listen, Kara. I know you want your wife back, but … you can’t  _ make _ her into  _ your  _ Lena again. She’s been living as someone totally different and that- that’s not going to change overnight. Be  _ patient _ with her.”

“I  _ am,”  _ Kara tightly replied, bristling. “You have  _ no idea _ how hard I’m trying. It’s taking every bit of me and it’s barely been a day. I feel  _ exhausted _ ; it hurts to even be in the same room as her half of the time.”

“I’m sorry.”

Letting out a rough sigh, Kara shook her head and drained her coffee before pushing her chair back and climbing to her feet.

“I need to talk to Kal.”

“Right.”

Stalking out of the room, Kara forced her shoulders to slump into a more relaxed posture and painted a smile on her face as she made her way upstairs. In one of the spare rooms, she found her cousin sprawled out on the bed, copying the glyphs that Kara had taught him a few years ago.  He looked up as she poked her head inside and gave her a bright smile, a lock of dark hair falling across his forehead.

“How’s it going?”

He showed her the lines of swirling script scrawled across a page and Kara smiled slightly as she read the sentences.  _ My name is Kal-El of House El. I am from Krypton. The sun is red. _

“Good,” Kara approvingly said as she sank down onto the edge of the bed, reaching out to tap the page, “remember to do to the little squiggle in the middle of  _ dao.” _

He quickly corrected it, the pen clumsy in his delicate grip as he tried not to snap it with his strength. It was difficult, trying to make sure he didn’t blow up with anger and carve lines in the walls from a tantrum, that he didn’t kick the ball with too much force in a soccer match or start floating when he got excited. 

It was harder to be a parent than Kara had known, sometimes feeling bitter about the responsibility thrust upon her by her parents as she was sent off to a new world. Sometimes she wished they’d landed at the same time, so Eliza could’ve raised her cousin for her, but at other times she was grateful she’d been halfway through college when Kal had landed, so she’d had time to adjust to Earth and  _ want _ that responsibility. Eliza had offered anyway, but Kara had claimed him as her blood, determined to raise him knowing about his planet, without subduing the parts of him that he’d have to hide out in the world. 

She didn’t regret that choice, only wished that perhaps it could’ve been different. As it was, she’d spent too much time away from him, each day spent looking for Lena, and the forgetfulness and neglect weighed heavily on Kara’s shoulders with the rest of her guilt. Watching him fix up his grammar, she made a silent promise that it would be better now.

“Hey, Kal. Remember how Lena went missing?”

“Did you find her?” he asked, a hopeful note in his voice as he looked up at her with anxious blue eyes, fiddling with his lead-lined glasses.

Giving him a wan smile, Kara nodded. “I did, but … she doesn’t remember us. Something happened to her while she was away, and we’re going to try and fix her so she’ll be back to normal, so I’m going to need you to stay here for a bit longer with Alex and Kelly, okay?”

“Okay. But she  _ will _ get better, won’t she? She’ll remember me.”

“Of course she will, bud,” Kara said with forced brightness, “she just needs some time. But … that means that we can’t tell her about things, okay? You won’t be able to use your powers or talk about Krypton or anything like that. Anything from  _ before.  _ You understand that, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Great. And thanks for being so good for Alex. Maybe on Saturday, we can go out for ice cream; just the two of us, like we used to.”

Grinning, he raised his eyebrows with a spark of excitement in his eyes. “Can we go to the park as well?”

“Sure,” Kara agreed, wrinkling her nose as she smiled.

She stayed for a bit longer, listening to him tell her about school and soccer practice and the cartoons Kelly had let him watch before bed the night before. Anxious to burn through her chores, Kara made her way downstairs afterwards and dug out a few twenties from her purse, handing them to Alex.

“For groceries.”

“I don’t need your money,” Alex protested, rolling her eyes.

“He eats a  _ lot,”  _ Kara chuckled, rubbing a hand over her face. “Hey, what did you say about the news earlier?”

A wide-eyed look of mild surprise and concern flashed across Alex’s face and she stepped into the living room to turn on the TV to a local news channel.

“The story is out,” Alex grimly explained. “It’s the top story for every major news outlet this morning. It broke just before you got here for the ten o’clock news; they’re probably already flocking to your house.”

_ “Shit,” _ Kara muttered. “I gotta go.”

“Hey,” Alex said, catching her arm before she could run out. “Are you … going to tell her?”

There was a wary flicker of uncertainty in her sister’s brown eyes and Kara’s stomach lurched slightly before she sighed and shook her head.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea yet. Not when she’s so out of her depth already. I’ll just … let her get settled first before I spring any nasty surprises on her.”

“Right.”

“I  _ will _ though. Eventually,” Kara solemnly stated, nodding convincingly to herself.

Alex nodded to her too, letting her go, and Kara shouted upstairs for Kal, smiling slightly as a blur streaked down to wrap her in a tight hug. Giving him a gentle squeeze, she set her hand on top of his head and gave him a stern look.

“Behave. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I will.”

“We’re having pizza for dinner, right, Kal?” Alex excitedly said, raising her eyebrows.

“And we’re going to build a Lego spaceship! Like the pod I came here in.”

“Sounds very cool,” Kara grinned, kissing him goodbye before she thanked Alex again and stepped outside.

As a shortcut, she called Kelly while driving to the nearest shopping centre, her call picked up immediately to Kelly’s anxious voice.

_ “Hey, Kara. How’re you doing?” _

“I’m … okay. Listen, I’m sorry to bother you at work, but … Alex said you were going to ask Andrea about using Obsidian tech. I was wondering if you’d had a chance yet?”

_ “I haven’t spoken to her today; she was in meetings this morning but she rushed out twenty minutes ago.” _

“Okay, well … keep me posted.”

_ “Will do,”  _ Kelly promised before hesitating.  _ “How is  _ she _ doing?” _

Exhaling softly, Kara pressed her lips into a flat line as her grip on the wheel tightened. She had to caution herself to not grip it too tightly, in case she pulverised the leather and plastic into dust.

“She’s handling it remarkably well - I think.”

_ “That’s good. Really good.” _

“I’ve got to go,” Kara said, pulling into a parking lot and killing the engine once she came to a stop in a bay. “Thanks, Kelly.”

_ “No problem.” _

Making another quick call to J’onn and then to Brainy, answering their repeated questions everyone else had asked before she ensnared their help for trying to repair Lena’s amnesia, Kara finally finished the rounds and climbed out of the car. She was quick in the stores, in and out within half an hour, and then she was rushing off home.

Surprise and a flicker of panic hit her as she made it halfway down their street, slowing to a crawl as she took in the news vans lining the road. Swearing under her breath as she inched past reporters, paparazzi and the DEO agents, Kara’s heart pounded in her chest and her palms turned clammy on the wheel.

She had to lean on the horn a few times and was grateful for the tinted windows, before she stopped at the tall gates and wound the window down. Leaning forward slightly as her retina was scanned, Kara watched as the gates parted.

Tearing up the driveway, she spotted a vaguely familiar car parked out front and put the Ferrari into park and climbed out of the car with arms laden with bags. Caution made her wary, wondering how the car had passed the front gate, before she listened to the heartbeat and felt the tension in her stomach unknot.

At that moment, the car door opened and Andrea Rojas stepped out, looking prissy and impatient as she folded her arms over her chest. The scar between her eyebrows deepened with a frustrated look.

_ “Why _ haven’t you been answering your phone? I’ve been knocking for twenty minutes and no one has answered.”

“Miss Rojas,” Kara uneasily replied. “Now isn’t a good time, actually. Um … I’ll call you later, maybe?”

Inching towards the door with a sheepish look on her face, Kara felt meek in the presence of the other woman. Lena had sold CatCo to her six months before she’d been kidnapped, and while Kara knew they were old friends, she’d never been all that close with Andrea outside of work commitments.

“Where is she? Is she okay?” Andrea pressed.

Wincing as the door slid open at her arrival, sensing the burden of her bags, Kara stepped inside with the sinking feeling that Andrea was going to follow her in.

_ “Good afternoon-“ _

Kara cut the AI off as she set a handful of bags down on the marble floor and stepped into Andrea’s path. While not in her suit, Kara was still imposing when squaring her shoulders and raising her chin, a forcible presence that would be immovable as she stared down her boss.

“You have to leave,” Kara firmly said, “she’s not well enough to see you and-“

“Lena?” Andrea called out, trying to step around Kara and finding her path barred.

“I said she’s not-“

With a flicker of anger, Kara trailed off and tensed at the quiet sound of footsteps behind her. Glancing over her shoulder, she looked at Lena with a pale look of worry on her face.

“What’s going on here?” Lena asked, wrapping her arms around herself as she eyed the situation.

“I-“

Kara trailed off again as Andrea slipped past her, too quick for Kara to stop with her arms full, and she opened her mouth to protest as she watched her boss strut across the foyer with her arms open. Lena shrank back with a spasm of fear crossing her face but Andrea didn’t slow, and as Kara started to set the rest of her bags down, Andrea managed to wrap Lena in a hug.

“I don’t think-“

“Oh  _ God,  _ I’ve-“

Both women trailed off as Lena stiffened and ducked out of the embrace, grabbing Andrea’s arm and spinning her around so fast that no one even had time to react. A cry of alarm slipped from Kara’s lips as she watched Lena jerk Andrea’s arm up at a painful angle and then swipe her feet out from under her, sending the prissy billionaire face-first into the cold marble.

_ “Shit,”  _ Kara hissed, dropping the bags and rushing over to Andrea.

Lena backed away, mouth open and eyes wide with panic as she held her hands out before her, fingers splayed and a rigid posture, as if she thought her hands might lash out again. Crouching beside Andrea, Kara gently helped ease her up, cringing at the abashed look on her boss’ face. Luckily, she’d broken her fall with her hand, but she still hissed as she rubbed at her cheek.

“What the fuck, Lena.”

“I  _ tried _ to tell you,” Kara bitingly replied.  _ “That  _ isn’t Lena. At least not mentally; all her memories are gone.”

She dragged Andrea back to her feet and then looked to Lena, who was pale and trembling. Melting with pity, Kara took a cautious step towards her, a hand outstretched.

“Hey, it’s okay.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Lena roughly said, a wild look in her green eyes as she curled her hands into fists. “I- I don’t know why it happens sometimes. I don’t know how I know how to do that.”

“You had a black belt in taekwondo,” Kara gently replied, “it’s probably just … some unconscious part of your mind. A triggered response to a threat. But it’s- it’s okay; no one is hurt.”

Lena turned away, tipping her head back slightly as she let out a shuddering breath and then audibly swallowed. The silence was deafening for a moment before Kara cast Andrea a cursory look.

“You should go,” Kara softly ordered.

“Wait,” Lena blurted out, taking them both by surprise. “I- I know you.”

Kara’s stomach seized as the breath was knocked from her lungs, and she whipped her head back to look at Lena. Her heart was pounding in her chest as a bubble of hope expanded, filling her with its warm elation, and the corners of her mouth quirked up into a look of astonishment.

“You’re Andrea Rojas.”

“Yeah,” Andrea whispered, a half-smile on her face as she dropped her hand from her face.

“I’ve seen your advertisements on TV,” Lena said with a crumpled look of bewilderment. “For Obsidian North.”

And just like that, the bubble popped and Kara deflated so rapidly that the world seemed to lurch. Feeling as if her knees were about to give out beneath her, she pressed a trembling hand to her mouth and turned around.

Andrea gave Lena a polite smile and nodded, before giving Kara a questioning look. Walking towards the open door, Kara gestured for her to come outside, and, with a backwards glance at her old friend, Andrea followed.

“It’s amnesia,” Kara rasped, feeling sick as she pressed her palm to her forehead and closed her eyes. “She doesn’t remember a thing.”

“Oh.  _ Oh,  _ Kara, I’m so sorry.”

Nodding, Kara swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth. “She was in Metropolis; we got back yesterday, so there hasn’t been time yet, but …”

“Bring her by Obsidian,” Andrea commanded. “I’ve got technology that can map the mind. It might turn up something.”

“Thank you,” Kara nodded.

She peered up as Andrea set a hand on her arm and gave her a mournful look. “And take as much time off work as you need. I know that it’s been a … difficult few years for you with … everything. Take the time to be with her now; help her find her way back.”

Giving her a wan smile, Kara nodded again. “I’ll call you if she- well … you’re one of her oldest friends, so maybe it’ll help.”

“Whatever you need.”

She climbed into her car after that and Kara watched her vanish down the driveway before she turned and walked back inside, gravel crunching underfoot. Slowing at the sight of Lena kneeling at the discarded shopping, Kara swallowed thickly and pressed a hand to the panel to close the front door behind her before walking over to her.

“I’m sorry; I tried to keep her out but … you used to be friends and she’s very stubborn.  _ And _ my boss.”

“You don’t have to apologise. I heard her knocking but … I assumed she’d leave eventually,” Lena murmured, a guilty look of shame on her face, turning her cheeks a delicate pink as she picked up a tin of cat food and paused as she eyed it before looking up at Kara.

With a wry smile, Kara shrugged, “I thought if he’s sticking around he’d need some things. What’s his name, anyway?”

Blinking, Lena’s expression crumpled into a troubled look. “I don’t know; he’s not really my cat.”

“Okay, well … you decide and then we’ll get him a tag for his collar in case he goes missing.”

“Have you ever had a cat before?”

“Mhm,” Kara smiled at the thought, slowly putting things back into the bags, “I found a stray too, not too long after I moved to Midvale.”

“What did you name it?”

“Streaky.”

Lena paused, raising a sceptical eyebrow, “okay, well … I’ll think of something … better.”

Kara let out a burst of laughter and straightened up with a load of bags. Carrying them through to the kitchen, Kara blinked in surprise at the tidied up space, her work neatly stacked on the table, the laundry carefully folded and Kal’s toys swept into a neat pile. The general air of mess had been ironed out and Kara slowly put the bags down on the island counter as she looked at Lena.

“Thanks for tidying up the mess. And sorry. I’m not usually so messy, it’s just been a rough few … years.”

Lena cracked a smile at that and set the other bags down on the counter. Quickly unpacking them, revealing a cat bed, water and food bowls, a little green collar and bags of food, treats, toys and flea and worming medication, Kara pulled out a small white box as well and hesitated for a moment before handing it out to Lena. Looking at it for a moment, Lena frowned before taking it. 

“It’s a new cell phone. Your old one vanished with you - untraceable, of course - and I figured it would be good for you to have for when you start … going out. Or just … wanting to play games or whatever you want it for.”

Speechless for a moment as she turned the slim box over in her hands, Lena pressed her lips into a flat line, a look of guilt creeping into her thin face. “That’s … too much. I can’t accept it.”

“Why? It’s  _ your _ money, you know. Don’t feel guilty for spending what  _ you _ own.”

Raking a hand through her hair, Lena clutched it tightly and shook her head. “It just- it feels wrong. All of this. I-  _ how _ do I go from …  _ that _ to … this?”

Slowly folding all the bags and shoving them into one, Kara braced herself against the counters and startled slightly as the cat jumped up onto them and nudged at the collar. 

“I’ve had to go through a big adjustment before too … it’s not easy, but … it does get  _ easier. _ With time. I know this all feels like … a lot; I don’t know how to make it smoother for you, but … I’m taking some time away from work so I- I’ll be here if you need me. And if you need space … I can give you that too.”

“I know it’s hard for you too,” Lena whispered, “I know I must be … a disappointment.”

“No, no,” Kara quickly assured her, a yearning look on her face as her expression softened, “please don’t think that. It’s not what I imagined, it’s true, but … I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“You want your wife back.”

Averting her eyes as she clenched her teeth, Kara nodded as tears stung her eyes. “Of course I do. And that doesn’t mean that I resent you for not remembering, but … I have to believe that once you’ve met someone you never really forget them, it just takes a while for your memories to return. Because if that’s not true … I don’t know what else I have to live for.”

“Your nephew,” Lena rasped, her voice thick with emotion as her bottom lip trembled slightly. “Your nephew still needs you.”

Kara didn’t know whether it was a gentle reminder or the harsh truth that she would need to find something other than Lena to drive her if things didn’t get better. It hurt either way, and she knew that it wasn’t fair to pin the blame on Lena, not when she was just as lost, just as confused - even more so - and Kara meant it when she said she didn’t resent her for her amnesia, but there was a certain callousness to telling someone that she hoped one day she’d become someone else entirely. Revert back into a stranger.

“Thanks for the phone,” Lena murmured, giving her a faint smile before she turned and left.

With a heavy sigh, Kara flexed her fingers and resisted the urge to punch something. Putting away the cat supplies, she fished out leftover Thai food and shovelled it down as fast as she could, not even bothering to heat it up as the hole of hunger gnawed at her stomach, and once she was done, hiding the boxes in the trash, she hunted down the stray to wrestle the collar on him. She was glad her skin was impervious as he struggled, hissing as she snagged him and forced it around his neck.

Watching him slink off afterwards, Kara felt a flicker of triumph at the small victory and felt marginally better. Still, there was that awful feeling in her chest, the suffocating queasiness that hadn’t abated since that despairing moment at the precinct when the truth had slammed into her. But it had only been one day,  _ barely _ , and Kara knew she had to give it more time than that. The thought of living with that hopelessness for  _ months _ made her want to give up right then and there though, and with the heaviness in her chest, she made for the small room with the magnesium pool.

Setting the sun lamps on high, she stripped off her clothes and stepped into the shallow pool of warm water and let herself drift as she basked in the feeling of invigorating radiation. Mind free to wander, trying to fall into a meditative state with old Kryptonian prayers, Kara kept coming back to Lena. She was all she could think of, had been since the moment they’d met, with increasing worry over the years as things went awry and then got worse. It wasn’t the peaceful reprieve she’d hoped for, but an hour later when she climbed out, Kara felt a little more alive, a little more recharged.

It was past noon and she went upstairs to shower, listening to Lena’s heartbeat from the other end of the floor. Her shower was brisk and the heat helped a little to rid her of any hidden tension. Dressing back in her clothes, Kara stepped outside and made her way downstairs, hesitating in the kitchen as she chewed on her lip.

Meekly preparing a sandwich, Kara made her way back upstairs and stopped outside Lena’s door, drawing in a deep breath as she raised her hand. She was about to knock when she heard Lena’s footsteps on the other side of the door.  Eyes widening a fraction, Kara took a step back as Lena opened the door and then pulled up short, her heartbeat erratic for a moment before she swallowed audibly.

“Lunch?” Kara offered with an uneven smile.

“I was coming to find you,” Lena confessed, “I, uh, I’m sorry. I don’t want you to think I’m being ungrateful. It’s just … a lot. I’m tired and confused and I  _ wish _ I could get at least  _ one _ answer.”

“I have a hunch,” Kara said with a rueful smile, a spark of anger in her eyes. “Your brother.”

“My … brother.”

“You two don’t exactly … get along. You, uh, you actually shot him once, so …”

“I … shot my brother,” Lena slowly said, blanching as the plate in her hand dipped.

Reaching out to steady it, Kara winced. “Sorry, that could’ve been more  _ tactful.  _ But … he’s the only person I can think of that would have done something like this.”

“But …  _ why?” _

Kara paused, biting her bottom lip as she struggled to find the words. She couldn’t explain to Lena that she was the most important thing to Kara, a super-powered alien who saved the world on the regular, that Lex enjoyed hurting her, exploiting her weak spots, with Lena chief amongst them as one of the few people he had the ability to hurt. 

“I don’t know,” Kara murmured. “I could be wrong, anyway, but … well, when you were creating _Hope_ , you did some research on mind control. It was part of creating an AI, some … brain mapping thing that triggered the AI’s response to commands. If he stole your work … it could explain what happened to your mind. There’s just so much we don’t know. But there are people who’re going to help. Andrea is one of them; Obsidian North is one of the leading forces in psychological technology. If you’re up to it tomorrow … we can run some tests. Alex was a practising doctor when she graduated from college, so she’ll be able to help.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Or the next day. Or whenever you’re up for it. There are reporters outside, so it won’t be right now. Don’t worry.”

Surprise flashed across Lena’s face. “Reporters? Why?”

“You- you’re one of the most famous people in the world,” Kara said with a crease forming between her eyebrows. “You’ve been missing for four years. You’re the top story for every news outlet.”

“Oh,” Lena faintly murmured.

“Don’t worry, I won’t let them anywhere near you.”

Looking unconvinced, Lena nodded and then hesitated, “I’m going to take this downstairs.”

Nodding, Kara gave her a faint smile, “I’ll be in my office.”

She spent the rest of the afternoon locked in there, researching retrograde amnesia, skimming through dozens of articles and ordering books online, before she clicked through pages of information on brainwashing and kidnapping. Kara knew she was out of her depth in how to help Lena, and books wouldn’t help, but it was all she could do to feel useful at that moment.

It was difficult to concentrate though, hearing the quiet footsteps pacing in the bedroom across the house, the occasional quiet murmuring to the cat that made Kara smile faintly to herself, and she spent half of the afternoon slumped behind her desk, spinning around in her desk chair as she listened. It brought a sense of peace, to listen to the sound of life in the house again, instead of the overwhelming loneliness and quietness, briefly filled by Kal’s childish excitement after school and for fleeting moments in the morning. But her heartbeat still troubled Kara.

As the sun started to set outside, and Kara had finished making whispered phone calls to arrange plans for tomorrow, her stomach started growling with hunger. Locking her computer, she rubbed at her tired eyes and shoved her glasses back on her face before climbing to her feet.

Lena was still in her room and Kara lightly tapped her knuckles on the door and stepped back, waiting. She smiled slightly as the door opened a moment later.

“Hi, um, what do you feel like for dinner? We can order out again. Do you like … Indian food? Italian? Mexican?”

Shifting uneasily, Lena gave her a crooked smile as she shrugged, fiddling with her fingers. “I don’t know.”

“Well … what’s your favourite food?”

Snorting, Lena ducked her head as a wry smile curved her lips. “Pizza. I could usually make it stretch for a few days so …”

Regretting asking, Kara ducked her head in acknowledgement and rubbed the back of her neck. “Okay, pizza it is. Which toppings do you like?”

“Just cheese.”

With the inkling that she’d picked cheese because it was always the cheapest, Kara hesitated, tilting her head to the side as she raised her eyebrows slightly. Face softening, Kara gave her a fragile smile of hope, her voice light as she replied.

“Do you want to come and look at the menu?”

“Sure.”

Nodding, Kara bit her lip and hovered for a moment before spinning around and walking out of the room. Lena followed her downstairs and Kara grabbed her laptop off the dinner table and took a seat on a barstool, typing in the password and opening up the browser.

Turning the screen to Lena, Kara waved a hand at it, “pick whatever you like.”

Lena stood close to her, closer than she had before, and Kara’s skin prickled as her stomach clenched. She was careful not to move, her heart pounding in her chest as she curled her hands in her lap, peering sideways at her. Lena’s hair fell in a dark curtain around her face, obscuring her features, and Kara had the urge to reach out and brush it away.

“Is the chicken supreme good?” Lena quietly asked, turning to look at Kara expectantly.

It took Kara a moment to blink herself out of it, and Lena straightened up, shifting away as the moment ended. Running a hand through her hair, Kara glanced at the screen, her stomach twisting.

“Yeah, that’s a good one.”

“Okay.”

Nodding, Kara angled her laptop back to her and quickly put in their order, adding wings and garlic bread and mozzarella sticks and anything else that grabbed her attention. It was for her benefit too, with her metabolism working overtime to fight off the inevitable exhaustion, but she also wanted Lena to try new foods. If there was one thing in life Kara appreciated, it was food, and she was insistent that she make sure Lena never went hungry again. If it looked like she was going overboard, she would just finish off the rest later, after they’d gone to bed.

Closing her laptop, Kara sat there for a moment and then looked at Lena with a hopeful expression on her face. “Do you want to watch TV?”

“Sure.”

“Beer?”

Dipping her head in a nod, Lena slowly meandered over to the TV while Kara fetched beer from the fridge. Casting a quick glance over at her wife to make sure she wasn’t looking, she twisted the cape off with her fingers and carried them over.

Lena mumbled her thanks and Kara sat down on the opposite end of the long sofa, picking up the TV remote and turning on the huge screen.

“What kind of TV do you like? Any shows you’re in the middle of?”

Raising a shoulder in a weak shrug, Lena took a sip of beer. “No TV. I used to have the news on at the garage at work, but that was about it. That’s how I found out. It was … lucky, I guess.”

“Okay, um, let’s pick a movie then. There’s action, comedy, romance, thrillers.”

“What was my favourite movie before?”

With a quick laugh, Kara’s eyes creased at the corners. “Titanic.”

“What’s it about?”

“The boat.”

At the bewildered look on Lena’s face, she grimaced and quickly flicked through the TV to find it. Pressing play she took a sip of beer, feeling irritable as her humour at her Lena vanished.

They watched it in silence, with Kara sneaking glances at Lena, who seemed unimpressed for the most part, yet watched with rabid attention. Kara wondered if she’d ever watched a movie before, ever treated herself to a trip to the movies to sit in the dark and stare at the big screen and enjoyed something. 

When _Hope_ announced the pizza delivery driver was there, Kara got to her feet and walked to the door to wait for the car to make it up the driveway. The young man looked confused, and she imagined the reporters were still camped on their street. She tipped him generously and took the teetering stack back to the TV with her.  Lena eyed the spread of food with shock once more, and Kara shifted further down the sofa so that they could both easily reach everything. Half paying attention to the movie, she peeked sideways at Lena to gauge her reaction to everything she tried, satisfied with her contentment as she ate her own barbecue pizza, trying to pace herself.  She fetched them more beer and she ate until Lena was full and then stopped herself, watching the last part of the movie in silence, the air in the few feet between them feeling charged. As it ended, the credits rolling, she turned to meet Lena’s gaze.

_ “That _ was my favourite movie?”

“Yeah.”

“Was I an … emotional person?”

Nose wrinkling, Kara shrugged, “I think … you struggled a lot with your family, and you liked the idea of love. Because you didn’t have that growing up. But, yes … you were emotional. You’d cry the minute someone got angry at you, but you were also  _ cold. _ It was a front, most of the time, but  _ God, _ sometimes it felt like talking to a wall. You could be  _ so stubborn.” _

“Am I much like her?”

Kara’s face screwed up into a thoughtful look as she eyed Lena, her cheek dimpling with a grim smile as she braced her elbows on her knees. She hummed slightly and then let out a quiet sigh.

“In some ways. I don’t know you well enough to know what’s there though; you could be more alike than I originally thought, but … not so much now.”

“What’s different?”

“You’re  _ definitely _ not as stubborn - or you’re just being polite so far - and you don’t seem as proud, or arrogant. You feel more …  _ naïve  _ than her, and that’s not … bad, it’s just … unusual. You’re gentler, not quite as … cold. I guess with you it’s different anyway; we don’t even know each other.”

“I don’t even know myself,” Lena murmured, a clouded look on her face as she hung her head, mimicking Kara’s posture. “I … didn’t have anyone to talk to. No friends, nothing. I don’t know what kind of person I am, because … I’ve never had the chance to find out.”

“I’ll help you,” Kara said with a small smile.

Climbing to her feet, she cleaned up their leftovers, waving away Lena’s help as she stacked boxes in the fridge and took the empty ones out to the recycling bins. Stepping back inside, she found herself hesitant. It was too early to flee to bed again, and the urge to cry had abated, stamped down into a corner within herself, but she didn’t know what to do. Leaving Lena alone, even if she wanted it, felt  _ wrong. _

“Um, hey,” Kara called out, reluctant to call her a name that wasn’t hers and resolving to call her nothing instead. “Do you maybe … want to have a look at some old photos? I doubt it’ll help you remember, but … maybe it’ll help you understand.”

“Sure, that sounds good.”

“Coffee to go with it?” Kara offered.

Lena nodded and gave her a thin smile. Setting two cups on the machine, she input their preferences and slipped upstairs to get a bankers box full of photo albums out. Quickly sifting through them, looking for the human safe ones for curious friends or guests who weren’t privy to the truth, Kara took them out and carried two stacked boxes downstairs.

Setting them down at the coffee table, she went to fetch their coffees and told Hope to turn the lights on. A warm amber glow illuminated the space and she sat beside Lena and reached for the top box. In chronological order, Kara set the first photo album between them.

“This is you when you were born,” she said, pointing to a small baby with dark, fluffy hair, pencil-thin eyebrows and big green eyes. “Um … did you research yourself properly?” 

“Not really.”

“Right. Well, your dad … had an affair. That’s how you came along, and, uh, you were adopted into the family when you were four after … your mom passed. You were actually born in Ireland.”

“Oh.”

“This is you just after you moved to Metropolis.”

“I- I lived in Metropolis?” Lena asked, a wide-eyed look of surprise on her face.

Giving her a small smile, Kara nodded. “Mhm, until you were eleven. You went to boarding school there; that’s how you know Andrea. You moved to Midvale just before I did, not long after  _ your _ dad passed, and … you didn’t have any friends either.”

Leaning over to flip the next page, and then the next, eyeing herself at varying ages, Lena looked up. “Are there any of you in here?”

“Baby photos? No,” Kara warily replied, “I, um, don’t have any before Midvale. They were all destroyed … in a fire.”

“Is that how your parents …”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

Nodding and then pressing on, Kara flipped through pages, occasionally adding commentary, until they reached the first photo of her. Heavy bangs and her glasses with grief etched on her face, Kara didn’t look  _ too _ different from how she was now. Older, and without the bangs, but with the same gentle sadness in her blue eyes.  Flipping to the next page, a grin spread across Kara’s face. Shoulder to shoulder, both of them smiling, was the first photo they'd taken together. Kara was still taller than Lena, and Lena’s smile was more sarcastic even then, a gleam in her green eyes. They were so young that it made Kara’s heart ache.

“This is from the field trip to the space centre,” Kara smiled, “you knew  _ every  _ constellation; you knew more than the  _ tour guide.  _ We were buddied up and we didn’t leave each other’s side all day; we were inseparable ever since.”

They flipped through their teenage years. Kara’s gangly phase and Lena’s braces. Kara on the soccer team, an exercise in self-control, and Lena winning first place at the science fair every year. There were dozens of photos of them, at football games and bowling with Alex making frequent appearances. Lena saw a photo of Eliza for the first time, and even Lillian and Lex, the former cool and unimpressed at her graduation, while Lex smiled widely. That was the last photo of him in there, before he’d dissolved into madness. 

Then there were college photos, Lena at MIT and Kara at Stanhope College, visiting each other on campuses, photos in sweaters with the names emblazoned on them. There were photos of Kara holding issues of the Midvale Newspaper from her internship the summer she was nineteen. Clippings of the articles and Lena’s name in print for her breakthrough research in cancer treatments. She’d earned her degree at MIT in two years, and at eighteen, was already at the forefront of biomedical science in the tech world.

There were photos from her TED talks and the two of them at galas, and Kara’s first reporting job at CatCo. And then it shifted, and suddenly there was a baby in them, with dark hair and piercing blue eyes like Kara’s. She watched Lena closely as they got to those, taking in the way she leant in more, hunched over the photos, her fingertip hovering a hairsbreadth above the pages.

A photo of Kara sporting an engagement ring as she smiled widely, eyes filled with tears with Lena beside her, both of them looking far too young, their faces still round with youth. A photo of Lena sprawled out on a sofa asleep, sporting her MIT sweater with Kal lain across her chest, his eyes closed. Their wedding mere months after proposing, both of them in white, looking ecstatic as they took photos with a pudgy baby in a little tux. There was an entire section for their wedding.

On and on it went, through them standing before the house they were in now, each anniversary, Kal’s first Christmas and Easter, Kal with their friends that Kara named for her in turn. Backyard barbecues and a house on the beachfront that Lena didn’t recognise, and vacations spent in tropical places, luxurious and worlds away from Lena’s shoebox apartment.

It ended with an unruly, dark-haired boy chased by Kara as he rode a bike with training wheels, Lena in the pool, swimming with him, Lena in bed reading to him, pasted drawings and strange symbols made in crayon, surprisingly neat for a young child. Kara’s throat felt tight as they neared the end of the last one, and she sat back as she let Lena pore over it.

“He looks like you,” Lena murmured, staring intently at a picture of Kal, a clear shot of his face with his blue eyes and dimples. “You have the same eyes.”

“Mm.”

“It’s strange … I think I must’ve loved him a lot, and I just- I don’t  _ recognise _ him. How can that be right? It doesn’t seem fair.”

Closing her eyes, Kara swallowed, “no, it’s not fair. And you  _ did _ love him a lot. Sometimes … it felt like he was more yours than mine. You were a better mom than me.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“It’s true,” Kara admitted, pressing her lips into a bitter line as she sat forward again. “You had more time for him than I did; you got to decide to not finish your doctorate and take over your family’s business and make your own hours. I’m  _ incredibly  _ smart, but not like you are. I was always in class, always working. Sometimes I think that it was selfish of me to want to take him in; we didn’t get to be kids, we were forced to grow up  _ so fast.  _ You were barely eighteen and a mother.”

“I clearly wanted that,” Lena murmured, closing the photo album and tapping her fingers on the front. “I look so happy in all of those photos; I bet … if- if I’d been around, there would’ve been another four years of happiness.”

With a quiet scoff, Kara abruptly climbed to her feet and started stacking the albums back in the box. “The thing about photo albums is you only include the good stuff.”

Clinging to the one in her lap, jerking it back slightly as Kara reached for it, Lena gave her a wary look. “Hold on … which photo is your favourite?”

Rubbing at a spot above her eyebrow, Kara sank to a crouch and reached for the album in Lena’s lap. Flipping through the pages, she stopped and turned it around for Lena, tapping the photo pasted in at the back. The last one she’d just looked at.

Kara was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, a cap tugged down low on her face, her hair shorter than it was now. Kal was on her shoulders, smiling with his hands thrown up in the air, and Lena had her arm looped through Kara’s, leaning into her as she laughed, her eyes creasing at the corners. Their edges were slightly blurred where they’d all been shaking with laughter, and a sad smile graced Kara’s face as Lena reached out to touch her face.

“Why this one?”

“It was the last time we were all happy together.”

“Before I was taken?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s a good one,” Lena whispered in agreement, a pang of longing in her voice as her eyes softened with yearning. 

Nodding, Kara shut the album and stowed it in the box, setting the lid back on top. It had taken longer than an hour for them to get through them all and Kara’s voice was scratchy from talking so much as she explained the photos. Feeling tired, her shoulders sagged as she lifted the two heavy boxes with ease.

“I might head off to bed.”

“Oh. Okay. Goodnight.”

“I’ll see you in the morning,” Kara said with a fleeting smile, turning and walking off.

Sleep was harder to come by that night and she listened as Lena made her way upstairs not long after her. Mind reeling as she kept circling back around to the unknown, to the nagging guilty thoughts at the secrecy and the worry about whether Lena would ever regain her memories.

When she finally fell asleep, it was past midnight, and her body finally gave up, dragging her mind with it. Restless, she murmured in her sleep, Lena’s name mentioned more than once, and it was just before dawn when Kara jerked awake to the sound of scratches at her door.  Blinking rapidly, she put her glasses on and climbed out of bed, opening the door to let the cat inside as he rubbed up against her legs. With a sigh, Kara scooped him up and glanced at the clock; it was just after six and she’d told Alex she’d meet her at L-Corp at eight to do a full checkup on Lena.

Padding down the hallway, she hesitated outside Lena’s door and then knocked, listening to Lena’s heartbeat lurch as it sped up. Kara’s face clouded and she heard the listless sound of her voice a moment later.

“Yes?”

Easing the door open, Kara poked her head inside and stared blankly at the empty bed. The sheets were gone, as was one of the pillows, and it took her a second to spot the top of Lena’s head on the side of the bed.

“Um, morning. Did you … fall out of bed?”

Pink-cheeked, Lena climbed to her feet, setting the pillow on the bed before she rubbed at the back of her neck, avoiding Kara’s eyes.

“No, I, uh, I couldn’t sleep. The- the bed feels … weird.”

“You … you were sleeping on the floor?” Kara hesitantly asked, frowning.

“Your carpet is thicker than my old mattress,” Lena wryly replied.

Clamping her mouth shut, Kara took a moment to absorb the fact, the car squirming out of her arms and padding over to Lena, who was shaking the blankets out over the mattress.

“There are five more beds you can try,” Kara said after a moment. “Maybe the mattress on one of them will be firmer.”

“It’s not the mattress.”

“Is there a draft in here? The window-“

“No, no, it’s nothing like that,” Lena sighed. “The bed is just ... big. It’s big and it’s soft and there are too many pillows and I’m …  _ warm.  _ And no one is trying to break in and it’s  _ quiet.  _ I’ll get used to it, I’m sure, but it’s … unnerving.”

Blinking, Kara floundered for a moment, cupping the side of her neck as she stared at Lena with uncertainty.

“Okay.”

“What time did you say we were meeting your sister?”

Kara stared at her for a moment longer before responding to her change of subject, looking around the room as she replied.

“Eight. You can shower while I get breakfast ready.”

“Great. Thanks.”

Taking a speedy shower of her own and changing into jeans and a sweater, Kara blurred down the stairs and quickly whipped up pancake batter. She had two perfect golden pancakes in the pan by the time Lena made it downstairs, startling Kara, who was used to her wife taking at least an hour to get ready in the mornings.

The Lena before her was vastly different from her wife though. Lena’s choppy hair was damp as it brushed her shoulders, her face bare and the same pair of worn jeans and boots thrown on with a sweater with a hole in the collar.

“You know, there’s a whole closet full of your clothes.”

“Oh, should I have put on something … nicer?”

Eyes widening as her heart lurched with panic, Kara’s mouth fell open and she tripped over herself to reassure her.

“No, no, it’s not  _ that.  _ You look fine.  _ Lovely _ . But … you didn’t bring much with you, so … it’s there. Or if- if you don’t like your old style we can … go shopping.”

“What’s in the closet? Silk? Cashmere?”

“Yes,” Kara said with a curling smile as she used the spatula to slide the pancakes onto a plate for Lena, nudging the plate across to her. “A lot of suits. And blouses.”

“Hm. Interesting.”

With a quiet chuckle, Kara poured more batter into the pan and turned to eye Lena, who was looking into the cup of coffee Kara had made for her. She took a sip and smiled faintly, seeming to delight in the fine coffee and regular meals.

“Hey, Kara? What if … the tests don’t reveal anything. I mean … how long do you plan on trying?”

“Well, I- I don’t know. I’m not sure how long it’s supposed to take.”

“But say it’s been six months … are we just going to pretend that there’s still a chance? Like … at what point do I move out and move on with my life? No offence, obviously, I just- I don’t know you, and I don’t remember this life, and … as much as I wish I  _ could,  _ I can’t … fill this empty spot for you.”

Lips twitching, Kara nodded and turned to flip the pancakes as she took her time to reply. Biting the inside of her lip as her hand trembled slightly, Kara cleared her throat.

“I don’t know. You’re not a prisoner here; you can leave whenever you want to. If you’d be more comfortable by yourself … I told you, there’s a penthouse you used to stay at often. I’ll make sure you’re well looked after. I’m not … trying to make you fill that space. I’m just hoping that we  _ do _ find something, or just … get  _ some  _ answers. And as for how long … I don’t know. I wish I could say I’d be able to give up and move on, but I don’t think I could.”

“That’s okay.”

“I’m sorry. But … I’ll respect whatever choice you make. If there comes a point where it’s too much, where you don’t want to do this anymore, I won’t stop you from leaving.”

They were both silent for a moment and Kara slipped the pancakes onto a plate before dropping in more batter. Picking up the plate she crossed over to the island counters and set it down for Lena to help herself to.

“Can I ask you something though?”

“Sure.”

“Why did you agree to this? Is it- is it because of the money? Because if it is, I’ll just … I’ll write you a check now. It’ll be easier to let you go now-“

_ “No,”  _ Lena roughly exclaimed, a flicker of irritation in her eyes as her cheeks flushed. “I’m not after your money. I just don’t know who I am. I don’t remember most of my life and that’s …  _ terrifying _ . I … do things I shouldn’t be able to and I don’t know  _ why.  _ I can rebuild a car from scratch and I don’t know how my hands know how to do that, and I just- I want to know more. Even if my memories never come back, at least I’ll know  _ why _ , even if I don’t remember how I felt and what I thought about it.”

Seeming satisfied with the answer, Kara dipped her head in acknowledgement and turned back to the stove.

“I can help with that.”

The rest of their breakfast passed in silence and Kara grabbed her things and a baseball cap and sunglasses, fiddling with them in the foyer before she held them out to Lena.

“Reporters are camped outside so … you might want to look a little less like yourself. You’re doing a good job already but … well, the whole world wants to talk to you.”

“Right.”

With the flimsy disguise in place, Kara gave her an approving look and pressed her hand to the front door panel, which slid across. Quickly descending the few steps, she clicked the key to unlock the car she’d hurriedly left parked haphazardly out the front of the house yesterday and glanced back at Lena, who was staring at it with round eyes.

“This is  _ your _ car?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh my  _ God.” _

Laughing, Kara flashed her a wide smile and opened the car door. “Remind me to show you our garage later.”

Lena nodded eagerly and quickly strode over to the Ferrari, buckling herself in as she looked around the interior of it. Cheek dimpling as she fought back a smile, Kara turned the key in the ignition and turned the car towards the gates.

“So, you didn’t work on cars like this at the garage?” she conversationally asked.

_ “No,”  _ Lena spluttered, amusement flashing across her face. “Definitely not. We worked on clunkers that were no better than scrap metal.”

“Did you like the job?”

Shrugging indifferently, Lena looked out the window. “It was honest work. It paid like shit, but I was lucky to get the job in the first place.”

“How  _ did _ you get it?”

“I was staying at a motel when I first came to in Metropolis. Some guy in the parking lot was having car troubles and I fixed his engine for him; he offered me a job on the spot and … well, I didn’t have many options and barely knew my own name, so I took it.”

Frowning as she neared the gate and watched as it parted to let her out. Reporters, journalists, camera crew and paparazzi fell on the car, camera flashes and muffled shouts overwhelming Lena, who sank down in her seat, surprise and fear written on her face.  Reaching across the centre console instinctively, Kara lightly touched her shoulder to soothe her and nodded back to the DEO agents that helped hold back the frenzy. Within moments, they were through the crowd and speeding off down the wide street, the tension dissipating, but not Kara’s frown as she glanced over at Lena.

“So … a mechanic just showed up where you were staying and was having engine troubles … and couldn’t fix it? Doesn’t that seem a bit …  _ odd  _ to you?”

Opening her mouth to protest, Lena quickly clamped it shut as her brow knit itself together in a thoughtful look. 

“Okay, well, when you say it like  _ that …  _ yeah, it’s odd. But I didn’t have a home or a job and the address on my license didn’t exist so … I took it.”

“What was your boss’ name?” Kara lightly asked, trying not to sound like she was interrogating her.

“Otis Graves.”

Slamming on the breaks, bringing them to an abrupt, screeching halt, a look of burning hatred and bitter triumph bloomed on Kara’s face as she whipped around to face Lena.

“That  _ bastard.” _

“What?”

“It  _ is  _ your brother,” Kara seethed, letting out a cold laugh as she slapped the steering wheel. “I  _ knew  _ he was behind this. When I find him I’m going to-“

Boiling rage filled her and she gripped the steering wheel tightly in her hands, teeth ground together as her body went rigid. Only Lena sitting beside her, ignorant and vulnerable, kept Kara behind the wheel then, stewing in her fury.

“Kara?” Lena asked in a small voice, warily reaching out to touch her arm.

Jumping slightly, Kara forced herself to relax and gave Lena a wan smile, pressing her foot to the accelerator.

“We can look into that later; Alex is waiting for us.”


End file.
